


Afters

by oleanderhoney



Series: The Colour of Light [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Colour of Light'verse, Companion Piece, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Protective!Lestrade, Roommate problems, Some angst, Some humour, a bit of h/c on occasion, annoying!Mycroft, girl!john, red pants ahoy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-22 13:59:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 46
Words: 67,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oleanderhoney/pseuds/oleanderhoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which John Watson is Jane Watson! On going little bits of domestic fluff interspersed through out the Colour of Light 'verse. Fluff to rot your teeth, because lets face it, domestic fluffiness is sweet like desserts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chinese

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! This is the companion piece to the series [The Colour of Light](http://archiveofourown.org/series/52616). I tried to write 'Afters' as a stand-alone so the little snap shots can be enjoyed just as they are, but it references the main arc, and I would really suggest you go back and read from the beginning. Starting with the chapter 'The Frailty of Genius' in part two of the series, certain words are linked that direct you to 'Afters' because I wanted to make this an interactive piece. This is ongoing as well, and I update regularly per chapter in the main arc. Thanks for dropping by!  
> xxHoney

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In conjunction with [Frailty of Genius](http://archiveofourown.org/works/909296/chapters/1766298)

“You’re quite sure this is the best Chinese in Westminster?” Jane asks suspiciously as she eyes the dingy hole-in-the wall that was the Lucky Cat. The glowing sign above the place only had the ‘L-C-K’ and half of the ‘U’ lit up, and Jane purses her lips in a half smile as she reads it out loud: “’Lick’? Appetising.”

“Oh just trust me,” Sherlock rumbles. “You can always tell a good Chinese by the bottom third of the door handle,” he says and actually pulls out his ruddy pocket magnifier and inspects said handle from top to bottom. Jane leans over, curious.

“Really? How, then?” she asks knowing he’s probably just bursting to tell her. Show off.

Sherlock snaps the magnifier closed and turns to her smugly. “There is more wear-and-tear on the bottom of the handle where more hands have been in contact with it. It’s shinier than the rest belying the faint oils our fingertips naturally leave behind. Because it’s the bottom two-thirds it speaks of a specific clientele: people who are of the Chinese persuasion. The food’s authentic enough to warrant a steady stream of said customers and their families.”

“So you know this because…of the stereotype that Asians are short?” Jane asks. “That’s a bit rude. I’m short, and so are loads of other people.”

“No you’re correct. The stereotype is a misconception. The average height of a man living in China is five-foot-eight, only half an inch to an inch shorter —give or take — than a man living in the UK. Not much of a difference to make any noticeable change in door handle polish wouldn’t you say? No I am referring to short people of a different variety,” he smirks, clearly drawing it out.

“Go on then, Mr. Wikipedia, enlighten me.”

“Children,” he replies, and Jane cocks her head. “It’s about honour. The Chinese believe in having the utmost respect for their elders, and given this is a family establishment, children frequent the restaurant often, holding the door open for their parents and grandparents as they enter.”

“Well then that can only mean one thing,” she remarks, her stomach growling.

“What’s that?” Sherlock asks.

“Damn good dim sum,” she says and grabs the handle leaving Sherlock to chuckle behind her.

* * *

Sherlock didn’t know what he expected. He’d assumed that after the adrenaline faded Jane and he would go back to the awkward acquaintanceship and uneven footing on which they started out. He was expecting stilted conversation and sidelong glances, and if he was honest, he was expecting her to get up and put as much distance as humanly possible between them because, really, she just shot a man in cold blood for him. But neither of those things happened.

Instead, what happened was easy conversation, and anecdotes of the past of all things. Like normal people. Which he was shocked to find he didn’t mind at all. There was nothing about Jane that bored him, and he listened with rapt attention when she talked about her military service in Afghanistan, her sister and their adventures when they were girls, and her insufferable mother. The tone was light and the company effortless. She does not mention getting shot or her father, and for once, Sherlock doesn’t press the matter.

When their food comes, Sherlock eats with gusto, but he peeks up at Jane every so often from under his lashes. Despite knowing how hungry she must be, she doesn’t eat as fast, and ends up pushing the pieces of her ginger duck around the plate more often than not. She nibbles on some cabbage, and he pauses half way to bringing a dumpling to his mouth. He huffs and rolls his eyes, setting his chopsticks down, and without saying anything he switches their plates.

“I told you you should have let me order for you,” Sherlock grumbles in mock irritation.

“Okay so maybe the duck was a bit ambitious,” Jane says digging into the orange chicken he just set in front of her. “I’m not good when my dinner still has its face attached.”

“Then why did you order it?”

“Didn’t want to be predictable,” she says.

“Ah. Well how is it now?”

“Delicious,” she says around a mouthful of food. “I can see why you like it.”

“Oh. I don’t,” he says with a quirk of his lips.

“What?”

“I prefer the duck. Face and all,” he winks.

“You ordered the orange chicken just to trade with me later?”

“Yes. And because I knew it would be your favourite. I’ll be quite surprised if you ever order anything else from now on,” he says licking some sauce off the pad of his thumb.

The look on her face told him he was probably right, and she narrows her eyes. “Do you ever get tired of showing off?”

“Nope,” he says popping the p with a smack of his lips.

“Berk.”

“Bint.”

She laughs, and throws a fortune cookie at his head which he catches deftly. “Go on then, guess my fortune if you’re so clever.” And Sherlock rips open the package eagerly.

“Be prepared to be amazed.”

***

After dinner they head back to Baker Street and up the steps as quietly as they can so as not to disturb Mrs. Hudson. They walk in and hang up their respective coats, and as if they had been living there for years, Jane says:

“Tea?”

To which Sherlock grunts ‘yes please’ and flops down onto the sofa to think. He presses his palms together and touches the tips of his fingers to the bottom of his chin. After the kettle’s boiled Jane comes over and sinks into the space next to him, and he idly takes the steaming mug from her. He takes a sip before he realises it’s milky and sweet perfectly the way he likes it.

“How did you know?”

“I'm not the only one who’s predictable on occasion, Sherlock Holmes,” she says and props her legs up on the coffee table, ankles crossed. He grunts again, still not used to being surprised so regularly by someone so ordinary. (No…not ordinary at all. Something undefined.) “So, Moriarty?” she asks.

“Mm,” he says staring off into the distance.

“Who is he?”

“No idea. The possibilities are vast. He’s some sort of specialist; a consulting criminal. From what I gather, people go to him for help, big or small as long has he has something to gain from the investment. The real question is: how far does this ‘Moriarty’s’ reach extend? I’m sure he would already be on Mycroft’s radar if he weren’t such a shadow. No doubt he would have contacted me by now for my help. Whatever or whoever Moriarty is, it’s big, and I’ve apparently caught his eye,” Sherlock says and sips his tea which was rapidly cooling. He’s still deep in thought when he registers Jane sigh gently beside him.

He looks over and finds her nestled into the couch cushions fast asleep with her cup of tea (cold by now, probably) resting in her lap. He takes it from her loose fingers before it tips over and puts both mugs in the sink.

“Jane?” he says quietly and nudges her shoulder.

“Mm?” she hums, her eyes still closed. “Oh. I should get a cab. S’late.”

“Yes it is,” Sherlock says and sits on the coffee table. He takes her left foot and plucks apart the laces of her shoe.

“I’ll come over firs’ thing tomorrow. With my stuff,” she murmurs.

“Good idea.” He sets to work on the right one.

“Might need a key…”

“Of course. I’ll have one made directly,” he says and tucks her shoes next to the sofa. “Lay down now.”

Jane mumbles and sighs once more, but only shimmies down further into the cushions. Sherlock rolls his eyes, and gently guides her to lie on her side, one hand cupping the side of her face and the other tucking her legs so she fit comfortably between the two armrests. She was really rather small and it was only in her vulnerable relaxed state that Sherlock realised this. Jane had always presented herself as a hard commanding presence that instantly filled any room regardless of if she had anything to say or not. 

It was impressive, the list of things he managed to overlook when it all boiled down.

Without anything more, he goes into the hall and grabs a faded afghan of Mrs. Hudson’s from the cupboard, and spreads it over her sleeping form. With that, he plops into his armchair, settling in for a long night of numerous _possibilities_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this will work. Heh. Thanks to every one who's read my work, and a tremendous thanks to those who've commented.


	2. Experiment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometime later...neither here nor there...
> 
> An experiment goes horribly awry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In conjunction with [One of Those Days](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971)

_Some time later…_

“Sherlock?” Jane says as she stares into the fridge.

“What?” he snaps in the middle of measuring out a few units of nitric acid to his flask of hydrofluoric acid. The measurements needed to be exact or —

“I think the milk’s gone off,” she says crinkling her nose when she sniffs it.

He huffs a breath out of his mouth and sets the beaker down. He lifts up his goggles for a second to irritably pinch the bridge of his nose, before putting them back into place. “It’s fine.” He tweaks the Bunsen burner under his concoction to high.

“No. It’s definitely gone off. I’m throwing it out,” she says.

“Here let me check,” Sherlock says and holds out his hand. She shrugs and gives it to him, and he shakes it and pops open the carton, sniffing delicately. “Hm. It’s only at the beginning stages of fermentation. We’ll keep it a bit longer.”

“Sherlock. _We_ are not keeping a carton of spoilt milk for me to accidentally poison myself with. Now give it here, I’m tossing it,” she says and makes to grab it back. He holds it away.

“Jane, you won’t _poison_ yourself with bad milk. Besides I can always test the growth and fermentation of yeast when —” Jane manages to go for it again, and this time her hand wraps around the carton just above Sherlock’s. She tugs, but he doesn’t relent. “Really? This is childish, now let go.” He tugs back.

“You let go. And you’re calling me childish?” she says incredulously, and her eyes narrow in a glare. She pulls, but he pulls back almost instantly.

“You are not throwing it out!” he snarls. “God I’ll put a label on it if you’re so concerned.” His grip tightens, and he steadily pulls to his side of the table attempting to disadvantage her due to her height.

“You never label anything,” she says baring her teeth, and rises on tip toes leaning forward. They glare at each other in a stalemate, their fingers squeezing the carton ever tighter when suddenly the bottom gives way and the contents go spilling out and directly into the flask that it was hovering over. 

Sherlock barely had time to realise the horror of the situation before the lactic acid in the milk reacted to the other acids in the flask causing it to explode with a gurgling bang that was somewhat reminiscent of a champagne bottle.

“What the bleeding _hell?_ ” Jane yells, and staggers back flinging her arm over her eyes just as Sherlock reels back against the worktop. He could feel the sting of the acids working into his scalp and his face as the concoction seeped into his pores. He tears off his goggles and suit jacket and wipes the dry sleeve of his shirt over his face.

“Did any get in your eyes?” Sherlock yells and runs around the table just as Jane slips on a wet patch and goes down to the floor. 

“Fuck. Ow. Yes I think so seeing as how it exploded in my face,” she says weakly, and he pulls her arm away to prevent further contamination. He practically rips the knit cardigan she was wearing off of her, and hauls her to her feet. She whimpers in pain, and tips her head back against his shoulder, her eyes tightly shut as he helps her down the hall to the bathroom. He frantically turns on the water full blast, not letting go of her for a second, and when the ancient pipes finally manage to pump the water through the shower head, he wastes no time dragging her into the tub with him.

“Tilt your head back, and try to keep your eyes open,” he says and brushes the hair back from her face so as much water can get into her impossibly red eyes.

“It hurts,” she hisses, but does as she’s told ,shivering slightly. He sets to work scrubbing off his hands with the bar of soap, and when he’s satisfied that they are clean enough, takes to her hands as well, rubbing up her arms all the way to the sleeves of her tee-shirt just to be safe. After a moment she asks, “What about you? Did it get in your eyes?”

“No. Thankfully I was wearing goggles when you decided to engage in a bloody tug-of-war with me over expired dairy products,” he grumbles with mock annoyance and pulls the elastic band out of her hair. She chuckles weakly, and leans into him, the pain making her knees tremble. (Stupid, _stupid_ of him. Careless.) He dollops a good portion of shampoo into his palm and works it into her scalp before attending to his own hair and face. He hisses, his cheek and the bridge of his nose stinging more than he was initially aware of.

“Come on, your turn,” Jane says, and shifts them so Sherlock is under the direct line of spray.

“What about your eyes?” he says even though the cool water running over his skin is a relief.

“The burning is mostly gone. And it looks like you didn’t manage to blind me, so it’s fine,” she says through a wry grin. She reaches up and scrubs the shampoo through his hair, her fingernails gently scraping his scalp and soothing the raw pain. 

They are quiet for a while as the water runs over them, and Sherlock can’t help but feel slightly nauseated. If he hadn’t diluted the hydrofluoric acid as much as he did this could have ended very differently. He opens his mouth to say something when he’s abruptly cut off by another sting of pain to his cheek.

“Sorry!” Jane says lowering her fingers from her probing. She looks up at him, a graveness suddenly coming over her. “I am sorry, I mean,” she says quietly. “You’re right it was childish.”

Sherlock blinks, taken aback. (Oh but of _course_ Jane would apologise for something that was hardly her fault. It was Jane.) Ironically this doesn’t make him feel any better. He clears his throat.

“Yes well. Perhaps you weren’t the only one being an idiot. And you couldn’t have possibly had the foresight to know my experiment would have reacted the way that it did,” he says, and without really thinking he pushes the hair out of her eyes once more.

“I think there’s an apology in there somewhere, but I can’t be sure…” she says with a smile and resumes her examination of the burn on his cheek, more gently this time. “That’s going to need to be addressed. Come on, let’s get out of these wet clothes, and you can clean the kitchen while I make tea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I am not a chemist. So if I exaggerated the effects of nitric, hydrofluoric, and lactic acids then it's for the sake of SCIENCE. No wait...


	3. Bond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane makes good on her promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In conjunction with the chapter [One of Those Days](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971)

_Mr. Science Man – 2:45 PM_  
Bored. Entertain me.  
SH 

_Mr. Science Man – 2:46 PM_  
Jane.  
SH 

_Mr. Science Man – 2:46 PM_  
Jane.  
SH 

_Mr. Science Man – 2:47 PM_  
Jane.  
SH 

_Sent – 2:48 PM  
sherlock I’m at work._

_Mr. Science Man – 2:48 PM_  
But there’s nothing to do here. Can I come there?  
SH 

_Sent – 2:49 PM  
ah. no. don’t you even dare._

_Mr. Science Man – 2:51 PM_  
I thought I fixed your phone? Why do you still insist on having terrible grammar?  
SH 

_Sent – 2:55 PM  
maybe it’s a conspiracy? I do these things just to irritate you. I could use emoticons to be extra cruel._

_Mr. Science Man – 2:56 PM_  
What in the world is an emoticon?  
SH 

_Sent – 2:58 PM  
;)_

_Mr. Science Man – 3:01 PM_  
Jane?  
SH 

_Sent – 3:01 PM  
>:)_

_Mr. Science Man – 3:03 PM_  
Jane those are just symbols.  
SH 

_Sent – 3:04 PM  
no they’re not they’re faces. :P_

_Mr. Science Man – 3:04 PM_  
Oh god. Forget I asked.  
SH 

_Sent – 3:05 PM  
:D_

_Sent – 3:05 PM  
o0o_

_Sent – 3:05 PM  
o.o_

_Mr. Science Man – 3:06 PM_  
Stop.  
SH 

_Sent – 3:08 PM  
>:P_

_Mr. Science Man – 3:09 PM_  
STOP.  
SH 

_Sent – 3:10 PM  
o_O or what?_

_Mr. Science Man – 3:10 PM_  
All right you forced me into this.  
SH 

_Sent – 3:11 PM  
sherlock?_

_Sent – 3:25 PM  
hey._

_Sent – 3:40 PM  
Okay fine. There. Is that better? All nice and grammatically correct._

_Sent – 3:45 PM  
Sherlock?_

_Mr. Science Man – 3:46 PM_  
It’s too late Jane. I asked you nicely.  
SH 

_Sent – 3:47 PM  
What did you do?_

_Sent – 3:53 PM  
Sherlock?_

_Mr. Science Man – 4:05 PM  
>:)_

***

When Jane ascended the seventeen steps up to the flat forty-five minutes later, she had a sinking feeling in her gut mostly due to the strong smell of her beloved English Breakfast permeating the hall. When she opened the door she was nearly bowled over by the aroma. She makes her way into the kitchen to assess the damage.

Used tea bags litter the work top like carcasses, their bodies crushed and mangled almost beyond recognition. The empty box sits bereft next to the stove, and Jane picks it up, crest fallen. She looks around and sees a flask bubbling merrily over a Bunsen burner, and the culprit — the murderer himself — was sitting in front of it jotting down notes.

“You. Are. A. Monster,” Jane says and tosses the box in the bin.

“Oh hello, Jane. Have a good day?” Sherlock says casually, not bothering to look up.

“What have you done?” Jane asks coming over to peer into the flask warily.

“Experiment. I’m attempting to isolate the caffeine from your black tea.”

“And that required all fifteen tea bags?”

“Well no but — wait you count your tea bags?” Sherlock asks with a smirk finally looking up. Jane decides not to answer this. So what if she does? She hates when she runs out and she doesn’t get her evening cuppa. Like now for instance.

“You know I always have a cup of tea when I get home from the Surgery,” Jane says crossing her arms. “I never took you for being deliberately cruel, Sherlock Holmes.”

“Sociopath, Jane,” Sherlock answers good-naturedly and gets to his feet. He comes over and practically looms over her. “That will teach you to take my threats more seriously in the future.”

She goes to say something when she’s cut off by a loud sniff from Sherlock. She closes her mouth and looks at him more carefully. His eyes are slightly glassy and red-rimmed, and he looks more pale than usual. When he sniffs subconsciously for the second time, Jane smirks. She couldn’t call herself a doctor if she didn’t recognise the beginning symptoms of ‘Flu when she saw them.

“You’re right. How silly of me,” she says and marches out of the kitchen. She tries not to laugh at the sucker punched look on Sherlock’s face, and makes her way upstairs to wait.

***

A few hours later, Sherlock’s slightly hoarse voice floats up from down stairs.

“Jane?”

Jane smirks. “Yes, Sherlock?” she says casually.

“Do we…” he clears his throat. “Do we have any throat lozenges?”

“Um. Check in the airing cupboard. I have an old tote in there on the shelf,” she calls. He doesn’t answer back, and she wonders if he even knows where the airing cupboard is. She sniggers to herself. The prat probably deleted it.

Jane gives him another twenty minutes before she goes downstairs with all the necessary accoutrements to put her plan into action. The sight she is met with is a pitiful one to say the least.

Sherlock is slouching in his chair with his legs stretched out in front of him, clutching a plaid afghan around his shoulders while he shivers, his teeth audibly clicking together. She chuckles, and he glares daggers at her but the effect is diminished significantly due to his ashen complexion and red nose. A battle field of tissues lay scattered around him, and she can see where the trail leads back to the kitchen. She sets down the quilt and paracetamol and goes to fill the hot water bottle and turn on the electric kettle.

“You’re loving this,” Sherlock says when she comes back, humming under her breath. She kneels down and undoes his shoes. His legs drop bonelessly back to the floor with a pathetic thud.

“Yep,” she says and helps him to his feet. “Go get comfortable and come back out here. Unless you feel tired enough to sleep?” she says innocently.

“It’s eight o’clock in the evening, Jane. I’m not going to bed like some old man,” Sherlock grumbles and shuffles back to his room, still clinging to the afghan like, well, an old man. She can barely contain her glee, and goes into the kitchen to make Sherlock a cup of chamomile tea with extra honey.

He shuffles back out a few minutes later, and Jane shucks the thin afghan from around him and replaces it with her fluffy quilt. She adjusts it much to his annoyance, and manouvres him to sit on the sofa. His teeth chatter comically, and she puts the warm cuppa into his hands.

“Drink that. Because I’m guessing you didn’t find the cough drops,” Jane says with a smile, and puts her hand on his forehead. “You don’t seem to have a fever as of yet, so you can tuck the hot water bottle under the blankets with you if you want.”

Sherlock grimaces as he finishes the last dregs of his tea, and eagerly accepts the water bottle. He groans appreciatively as he holds it between his frozen fingers for a moment before it disappears beneath the quilt. She hums and puts the Union Jack pillow on the coffee table so he can prop his feet up.

“There. All comfy? Getting warm?” she asks.

“Yes,” he huffs grudgingly and takes a few paracetamol from her.

“Good,” she says with a cruel twist of her lips. “Now it’s time for the entertainment.”

“Entertainment?” Sherlock rasps arching an eyebrow. Jane pulls out her final implement of torture and takes out the disc. She tosses the DVD case onto Sherlock’s lap and makes her way to the television. “ _Diamonds are Forever?_ ” he says in horror.

“I told you I would get you to watch a Bond film with me. Maybe that will teach _you_ that I don’t make idle threats either, Mr. Culturally Oblivious.”

“Just kill me instead. I’ll tell you how to get away with it and everything,” Sherlock moans, and brings the quilt up over his head.

“Oh no,” Jane says and pulls the quilt back down. “It’s either you watch this with me, or go to bed. Those are your options.” She sits down next to him and clicks the play button. Sherlock crosses his arms in a huff and scowls at the screen and Jane smiles at her victory.

Her victory is short lived, however, when Sherlock begins to ridicule the telly with,

“There’s no way that revolver would work after being submerged in the mud like that.”

and

“Scalpels? Really? Blofeld needs new henchmen if they can be felled by a hand full of scalpels when they have semi-automatic machine guns at their disposal.”

and

“No, no, no! A scorpion sting is rarely potent enough to kill a fully grown man!”

“Sherlock! The point of this movie isn’t to be logical! Now shut up and watch it!” Jane snaps.

“All I’m saying is the methods employed by Bond —”

Jane unwraps a throat lozenge and crams it into his mouth before he can finish the sentence, and he grumbles unintelligibly but remains quiet for the time being. 

After a while Sherlock says, “You really like this don’t you?”

“I may be enjoying a bit of payback, but no Sherlock, I don’t revel in the fact that you’ve got ‘Flu. It’s no fun, probably for me more than you considering I’ll be the one making sure you get better from it you git,” she says and knocks her knee into his.

“No I mean the movie,” Sherlock says.

“What? Yeah ‘course I do. It’s a classic,” she says.

“But…it’s so _bad_ ,” Sherlock says flinging an arm out to concede his point. Jane laughs.

“Yeah it is pretty bad.” She laughs again as 007 hijacks a moon buggy and out runs his aggressors in the Nevadan desert. “But that’s the point I think. My dad loved these movies…” she trails off thoughtfully.

“Mm,” Sherlock grunts. “So as a doctor do you prescribe hackneyed espionage movies to all your patients with ‘Flu?”

“It depends. Is it working?”

Sherlock grunts again and burrows deeper into the quilt as an answer. Jane suppresses a smirk, and they spend the remainder of the movie in silence. However, when Sherlock’s eyes drift shut and he ends up with his head on Jane’s shoulder, she can’t help but chuckle softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! All feedback and comments are welcome!


	4. Thursday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just another rainy Thursday...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *edit previously titled 'The Skull on the Mantel'
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [Graffiti at the Bank](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1809860) in part two of this series.

Jane has nick names for everybody. It is equal parts irritating, and amusing. The latter especially if they are directed in Mycroft’s direction. (He was particularly fond of Mycroft’s newest one, ‘Emperor of Cake’ that he plugged it into his contacts.) He was less amused at the slew of his own nick names — Mr. Science Man, Mr. Cambridge, and Clever McSmarty were some of the worst. But the fact she did it purely to goad him made it okay some how. It was a trait of hers that despite himself, he actually found rather endearing. (Not that he would ever admit it of course.) So it wasn’t a surprise, really when she spoke up one evening and announced:

“Roger.” She puts down her novel decisively.

“What are you on about?” Sherlock says plucking a few chords on his violin and staring into the fire.

“Your skull. We should call him Roger.”

“What? Why?” Sherlock lowers his instrument and looks at her taken aback.

“Like the pirate flag. You know…Jolly Roger?” she smiles and chuckles under her breath at her own joke and continues reading.

Sherlock’s eyes slide to the skull on the mantle. He almost forgot…well no he didn’t but he wanted to forget. Just for a little while. 

“I don’t understand your obsession with nick names, Jane. It’s rather childish,” he snaps acerbically. Jane blinks up at him with wide eyes.

“Grumpy tonight, aren’t we,” she remarks. Her teasing tone makes his temper flare. He gets to his feet in an angry huff.

“It’s just — it’s not his name, all right?” he says his voice raising to a shout, and he puts his violin back in the case. He turns around and finds that she's standing there in front of him. 

“Sherlock?” She reaches out to him, but he flinches back.

“It’s Wednesday,” he says by means of explanation and brushes past her to his room much to her bewilderment. He doesn’t emerge for the rest of the night. He can’t bear her penetrating gaze that seems to see more than he wanted; he can't surface through the mire of his thoughts.

* * *

Jane wakes up the next day to the sinking, sighing sounds of Sherlock’s violin. Quietly, she ventures down stairs and stops in the door way.

Sherlock sways side to side with his back to her to the somber notes and phrases, and he pulls the bow across the strings with a reverence that makes something in Jane’s chest flutter and pound. It is joy and sorrow; the light after the dark; grief like the smell of rain and catharsis like the sun breaking through the clouds. It makes the corners of her eyes sting with unshed tears, and she quietly retreats back to her room to compose herself.

Later, she comes back down stairs and Sherlock is still at the window, the violin hanging loosely at his side. Rain is coming down in sheets outside and breaking against the glass distorting the view. It’s hypnotic and Sherlock is transfixed, his brow furrowed and his eyes hard. Jane knows better than to disturb him, and makes her way to the kitchen to make some tea. She brings the second cup — just the way he likes it, milky and sweet — out to him and sets it on the desk. She comes to stand beside him and gently fixes his blue dressing gown that has slipped off one shoulder, and she turns and leaves for work without saying a word.

The day passes by rather uneventfully, and Jane can’t help but check the messages on her phone obsessively. It wasn’t unusual for Sherlock not to text, but in conjunction with his volatile shift in mood the night before, and this morning’s display, Jane worried for her friend. Something about his latest fugue was off. She was used to his pensive silence, but there was a darkness behind his eyes that spoke of something deeply troubling. She thought about texting him, but she dismissed the thought knowing it wouldn’t do any good anyway.

Late that night she comes back to the flat laden with takeaway, and she can hear the violin again from the street through the open window. What Sherlock was doing with the window open at the beginning of April she didn’t know. She comes up the stairs and takes the kitchen entrance so she can put their dinner down on the counter. Sherlock probably wouldn’t eat, but she hoped the gesture would at least be acknowledged. Her ears perk up when she hears a clatter and a low curse uttered from the sitting room.

“Sherlock?” she says coming through the door just as Sherlock grabs his bow that had fallen to the ground. He pauses for a fraction of a second and then starts up again. This time Jane listens where she hadn’t been listening before.

She hears the faint grind of horse hair on string, and the failing vibrato. To someone who hadn’t listened to Sherlock play for hours on end, it would sound nearly perfect. But Jane could hear the imperfections: the occasional flat note, and the frequent legato where perhaps a staccato was warranted. She sees how his arms tremble with the effort, and how every note gleaned from the instrument seemed to be physically painful. She comes up behind him and puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Sherlock?” she says again. He doesn’t stop, and Jane finally notices the state of the fingers on his left hand. They are coated in blood, both dry and fresh, and every time he lifts them, they stick to the fingerboard causing his hand to tremble before pressing down once more. She gasps and tries to turn him to face her, but he resists her. “How long have you been playing?” she tries. Still no response. _“Sherlock! Stop!”_

“I CAN’T!” he roars whipping around to face her clutching his violin around the neck. The bow lands on the floor again, and Sherlock pants though his clenched teeth, eyes wild. Jane doesn’t even flinch.

 _“Why?”_ she asks in a hushed voice. He turns away from her and runs a hand though his ragged curls.

“It’s Thursday,” he says, his voice gravelly. 

Thursday? What was so important about today? She tries to rack her brain for any significance of today’s date, but she draws a blank. Not knowing what else to say, she puts her hand on his back again. When he doesn’t shrug her off, she slowly reaches down and takes the violin from Sherlock’s slackening grasp. She sets it down on the desk, and notices with dismay the tea from earlier, untouched. Jane takes him by the wrist and guides him to sit in his chair. He complies without argument, and she goes up stairs to retrieve her first aid kit.

When she comes back down she finds Sherlock leaning against the mantle with a glass of scotch, staring at the skull.

“I didn’t know we had scotch,” she remarks. He grunts non-committally and drains it with shaking hands. She leads him to the sofa and sits across from him on the coffee table. Gingerly she takes his hand and rests it in her lap palm up, and as gently as she can she washes the dried blood off of his fingers with a warm flannel. He doesn’t even blink as she cleans the cuts with antiseptic and plasters them one by one. 

“It’s Thursday,” Sherlock says again barely above a whisper. “That’s ten years now.”

And suddenly it hits her. A conversation they had a little over a week ago:

_“Did you have a falling out with Victor too? Is that why I’ve never heard of him?”_

_Sherlock’s smile fades, and his eyes darken. “No. He died…”_

“Oh Sherlock…” Jane says, and Sherlock goes to put his head in his hands. He hisses in pain however and drops them limply in his lap. “Let me see,” she says, and he holds his hands back out to her. She takes the right one and gently massages his swollen wrist. “This is what happens when you play for twelve hours straight, you great git,” she says affectionately. She presses her thumbs into the centre of his palm and rubs outward, easing the stiffness. He closes his eyes.

“Victor was an art student. Wanted to be an architect. He had an affinity for Bach,” Sherlock says. He opens his eyes and trains his gaze on a point over her shoulder. Jane laces her warm fingers through his long dexterous ones and rotates his hand, flexing it slowly from side to side. She takes to the left one minding his bandages, and he tips his head back to rest against the wall. After she’s finished massaging his hands she sits next to him on the sofa. 

“You really cared for him didn’t you?” she asks softly. He turns to look at her, and she is struck by his gaze. All of the pain and sorrow that he imbues into his violin is written like a score in his opalescent eyes. He turns away from her.

“Caring is not an advantage,” he says as if by rote.

“Who told you _that?”_ Jane asks.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says and closes his eyes, that detached mask sliding back into place once more.

“They’re wrong, you know,” she whispers. She’s not sure if he heard her, but words never mattered to Sherlock like actions did. So she guides him down so he could rest on his side with his head in her lap. He goes willingly, and sighs deep in his chest. 

The rain picks up again, and Jane can hear the sound of distant thunder. She runs her fingers through his hair content to listen to the metallic patter of raindrops against the gutters of 221 B. Her mind wanders and her eyes drift around the room. They rest on the small carriage clock on the mantle.

“Sherlock?” she says smoothing the hair back from his temple. At first she thought he fell asleep, but after a moment he turns on his back with a question in his eyes. “It’s midnight,” she says and shows him her watch. The corner of his mouth curls up in a soft smile.

“Friday,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just my two in one theory on Sherlock's skull, and Victor Trevor. Comments welcome! And thanks for reading.


	5. Conductor of Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neither here nor there...
> 
> The power goes out at 221b.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In conjunction with the chapter [Strange Predicament](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1837006)

Dr. Major Barrington killed his wife.

Sherlock just _knows._

But he can’t figure out how. It was beyond frustrating, especially seeing as how his mind kept drifting over irrelevant facts:

Mrs. Barrington — primary school teacher; 48 years of age, Aquarius; frequent Regent Country Club member; cat owner; widowed, re-married to Dr. Barrington in 2006.

Dr. Barrington — widower of ten years before Mrs. Barrington; Dr. who owns a private practice; 53, Taurus; penchant for golf; smoker; graduated from Oxford; well off, no need for the life insurance that he no doubt cashed in after his wife’s death was ruled as heart failure, so no clear motive.

Sherlock paces back and forth intent on wearing a hole in the floor. He calls out to Jane twice to make him tea before he remembers she isn’t home from the surgery yet. For some reason this irritates him even more until his pent up frustration gets the best of him and he stops dead centre and yells, to no one in particular, obscenities at the ceiling. (In three different languages.) 

Then, as if the whole bleeding _universe_ was against him, the power promptly goes out.

Fully aware that he is on the verge of throwing a tantrum like a four year old, (and supremely beyond caring at this point) he flops down onto the floor in huff with his legs crossed at first, before giving in and sprawling out flat on his back, arms and legs akimbo. Hopefully the blood currently pooling at the base of his skull would help jumpstart his synapses. (Wishful thinking, probably.)

He doesn’t know how long he lays there staring into the dark before he hears Jane’s familiar tread on the staircase.

“Power out, then?” Jane says, stating the obvious. Sherlock curls his toes indignantly within his expensive leather shoes.

“You really are on _sparkling form_ tonight, Jane,” he says sarcastically.

Jane chuckles good-naturedly, letting the jibe roll off her back. It irritates him further and he flings an arm dramatically over his eyes while he listens to her rummage around in the kitchen for the torch they kept there for such emergencies.

“Why are you on the floor?” she asks a moment later, and Sherlock can feel her step over him on her way to the fireplace.

“I need to think. I was hoping a change in perspective would help me see,” he grumbles. He lowers his arm and watches as the weak glow of the fire steadily gets brighter, casting shadows on the stuccoed ceiling.

“Is it working?” Jane finally asks, and she leans back until she is lying on the floor likewise, their heads next to each other and their feet pointing in opposite directions like some sort of human yin-yang. Sherlock turns and finds her looking at him, the orange of the flames making her irises look like molten gold.

“No, not yet,” he sighs, his black mood dissipating slightly at her presence. She sighs and folds her hands over her stomach.

“When I was a little girl, I used to make pictures out of my textured ceiling before I went to sleep at night,” Jane says in dreamy voice. “We’ve got a perfect one for that,” she says and gestures to said ceiling in question.

“How quaint of you,” Sherlock says, but the remark is devoid of its usual acerbity. Between Jane lying next to him and the steady warmth of the fire, he is beginning to relax despite himself.

“Yep. I think I can see Father Christmas…and the Titanic in that particularly interesting cluster of drywall just there,” Jane points, and Sherlock tries, and fails to follow her line of sight. (And fails to see the point in the exercise as well.) “What about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you see anything?”

“Apart from an appalling amount of no doubt cancer inducing Asbestos?” he snorts, and she flicks him against the cheek. “Hey!”

“Use your imagination, you berk. It might help get your mind off the problem for a bit so when you return to it you’ll be more fresh.”

“This is ridiculous,” Sherlock says and squints at the ceiling.

“Just try it. What else are you going to do with the power out anyway?”

He gives a lengthy sigh and looks at up the dancing peaks and valleys cast by the light. After a moment he says, “The molecular structure of cocaine, and next to it, the double helix of a strand of DNA.”

“Only you would see DNA,” Jane laughs shaking her head. “Where?”

“There,” he points. 

“Where is it?” she asks again, and shuffles close to him to where their cheeks are nearly touching. Her soft hair whispers against his skin, and he can smell her shampoo and the scent of disinfectant and apple blossoms.

“Are you blind? Right there, Jane,” he says and grabs her hand so he can guide her finger to where he was indicating. “It’s a double helix in the process of replicating itself.”

“Right,” she says sceptically as they lower their arms. “I think it looks like a cat.”

“A cat? I thought you said the point of this was to use your imagination?” he scoffs.

“A cat is imaginative!” she says defensively. “Especially when he’s wearing a smart looking top hat right now.”

“Really Jane? Surely —” Suddenly Sherlock stops mid sentence as the answer clicks into place. _“Oh,”_ he breathes and looks at her. Even though the flat is still plunged into darkness, everything is stunningly bright. (Brilliant. Resplendent. Jane.)

“Sherlock?”

“It was the _cat,”_ he says excitedly. “Dr. Major Barrington’s wife was allergic to their cat and was on a regimen of antihistamines to combat the symptoms. Seeing as how her husband was also her doctor, and had access to the pharmacy his practice went through, it would have been easy for him to cause the overdose which lead to her heart failure. He got the pathologist over at St. Mary’s to forge the tox screen, neat!”

“You’ve solved it, then?” Jane says with a grin.

“Yes. It’s all so obvious now,” Sherlock says with a matching smile. He absently plucks an eyelash off of Jane’s cheek and blows it off the tip of his finger.

“See? I knew this was a good idea. Sometimes you need to focus on something else for a while; take a step back and observe something completely mundane.” She closes her eyes, and begins to hum happily under her breath.

Sherlock continues to look at her as he lets her words sink in. She was right, this was exactly what he needed; a sort of respite for his brain like a reset button. However, she was wrong about one thing: it wasn’t the funny little game they were playing that did it, it was _her._ Her presence, her voice, even that familiar smell of clinic and hand lotion that was uniquely Jane. And she was _anything_ but mundane.

She was like a whet stone for his mind.

She was like a dowsing rod leading him to things just under the surface.

Incandescent.

His conductor of _light._

“So you gonna let Greg know?” she asks drowsily after a while, her eyes still closed.

“I will in a bit,” he says, content to let her glow wash over them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just have to give a hugeeee thanks to everyone who has read and left kudos and comments. Your feedback is most encouraging, and makes me write more and write faster! Kisses to all of you. xxHoney


	6. Let Me In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is a difficult partner to work with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In conjunction with [Strange Predicament](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1837006) part three of the series.

Jane Watson was a doctor: a trauma surgeon, in fact. A damn good one. She graduated top of her class. She was also a Captain in Her Majesty’s Royal Army which was a feat in itself for one so young and she was highly decorated to boot.

So why, then, she was demoted to a bloody _coat rack_ for her crazy flatmate as he went haring off into the derelict warehouse in search of the drug operation that was Sherlock’s current case, she didn’t know.

“‘Wait here, Jane,’ he says. ‘I’ll only be a moment,’ he says,” Jane grumbles under her breath as she checks her watch for the fourth time in thirty minutes. “‘Hold my coat, I don’t want to _snag_ it on the _fence,’_ he says.” She kicks a rock away from her with perhaps a little too much force. “‘I’ll come ‘round front and let you in,’ he says!” She really needed to stop talking to herself now. 

Fed up with just standing there, Jane decides to walk around to the back of the warehouse so see if there was another way in.

She was about to try the steel doors on the side of the building before she heard shouting and swearing coming from the other side. She barely had a chance to dive behind a skip tucked up against the wall before they were flung open and a group of men ran out.

 _“Fuck_ where’s the van?” one of them shouts dragging his fingers through his lanky blonde hair.

“It’s ‘round the corner, come on!” another one says, and they all tear off down the street. Jane holds her breath until she can hear the growl of an engine and shrieking tyres retreating down the road.

Just to be safe she waits five whole minutes before rushing inside.

“Sherlock?” she calls out into the dimness. She has a strange twisty feeling in her gut when she is met with nothing but silence. “Sherlock?” She hurries down a dark corridor and rounds the corner into the main part of the warehouse. In the centre of the large room is what appears to be a meth lab and an assembly line of sorts abandoned in the crux of operation. Upon further examination, she can see the evidence of a struggle.

Glass beakers, a portable propane camping stove, and a table were upturned and scattered about the floor, and a small television was smashed in by someone’s shoe of all things. A very familiar, and expensive looking shoe.

“Sherlock!” she yells, and tries to calm the frenetic beating of her heart so she could listen. She hears the anemic whine of a phone, and searches the floor. There in a pile of rubbish, is Sherlock’s phone, screen cracked beyond repair, and flickering lightly. She picks it up and tries to get it to unlock, but it’s completely broken. She can see there’s an incoming text from Lestrade, but there’s no way for her to get at it. She hopes that means he’s on his way at least. “SHERLOCK!” she bellows, panic clawing its way up her throat.

Suddenly she hears a banging off somewhere to her left, and she takes off in that direction. 

She rounds the corner of some rusty scaffolding and is met with a door that reads ‘Boiler Room One’ and she shoulders it open. The banging is at its loudest, and she travels down the claustrophobic corridor lined with leaky pipes and the strong smell of mildew.

“Sherlock!” she calls again, feeling turned about in this veritable labyrinth. The banging suddenly stops, its last echo ricocheting off the walls around her adding to the confusion. She holds her breath.

Then, from the back corner of the room she hears a weak, “Jane?”

“Oh thank god!” she says rushing to the sound of Sherlock’s voice. She nearly falls through the floor that has been corroded by the damp, and has to grab onto a near by pipe for support.

“Careful!” Sherlock’s voice shouts up at her from below. She peers down into the hole and sees Sherlock standing in a part of the building’s basement, apparently. A very flooded basement by the looks of it, the water reaching all the way to Sherlock’s armpits.

“How did you get down there?” she says and looks around for something to hoist him out.

“Oh, y’know. Th-thought I’d g-go for a swim,” Sherlock tries to say sarcastically, but the effect is diminished due to his chattering teeth. “They threw me d-down here. What d-do you th-think?” he snaps.

“Hang on,” Jane says spotting a length of sturdy chain piled in the corner. She threads it through a strong looking pipe, and snakes the rest down the hole. “Don’t let go,” she snarls down at him, and then braces herself on the ground, feet firmly planted on the pipe and wall in front of her. She feels a sharp tug at the chain, and begins pulling with all her strength. 

The chain slips twice, causing the skin on the palms of her hands to break open and bleed a little, but if she lets go now, she won’t have the strength to pull him all the way up. She grits her teeth, and throws all of her stamina into the task until Sherlock’s dark head appears at the top. His arms flail, scrabbling for purchase as he tries to throw his upper body over the lip. Once he has some sort of leverage, Jane lunges forward and grips him by the forearms and pulls him out the rest of the way. He immediately curls on his side and shivers violently.

“Are you hurt?” she asks.

“N-not too much. Knocked me around a b-bit. Just c-c-cold,” he says and closes his eyes as deep tremors wrack his body. His lips and fingers are an alarming shade of blue, and Jane recognises the beginning stages of hypothermia.

“I’ll be right back,” she says and bolts to her feet, sprinting back out to the main room where she dropped Sherlock’s coat earlier. She also snatches his phone from off of the floor for good measure, and runs back to the boiler room.

Sherlock has managed to pull himself to a somewhat upright position, and Jane doesn’t waste any time hauling him to his feet and stripping off his sopping wet blazer and dress shirt.

“If you w-wanted me to t-take my clothes off, all you had to d-do was ask,” he says cheekily, and sags against her. She doesn’t comment on this, and instead unbuckles his belt with all the professional distance of a doctor she can summon, and pulls off his trousers and remaining shoe. She drapes his wool coat around his bare shoulders and guides him to sit against the wall before he collapses completely.

“Close your eyes,” she orders.

“Why?” he asks deliriously.

“You’re hypothermic, and need to get your core body temp up,” she says matter-of-fact, and hikes the fair isle jumper she was wearing over her head. His eyes widen comically before closing, and she quickly toes off her shoes and strips likewise down to her underclothes. After hesitating for only a moment, she situates herself sideways in his lap, and winds an arm around his waist, pressing as much of her chest and abdomen as close as she can to his where she knows most of the heat will be conserved. She pulls the coat tight about them, and rests her free hand on his chest as he wraps his shaking arms around her. They sit in silence for a while until Sherlock’s spasms turn into a much gentler shivering.

“You’re warm,” Sherlock murmurs resting his chin atop her head.

“That’s the point,” she grumbles. “And you’re an idiot by the way.”

“I had everything under control,” he remarks, subconsciously pulling her closer to him. “You’re like a miniature furnace.”

“And you smell like a sewer,” she says.

“Did you call Lestrade?”

“No.”

“What? Why?” he asks perplexed.

“Because _someone_ thought it would be a good idea to drain the battery on my phone forcing me to leave it behind to charge,” she says and clenches the fist resting on the maniac’s chest. She hisses in pain, forgetting about her raw palms. Sherlock pulls away a little and gingerly takes her hand so he could inspect the angry welts and shredded skin. She winces.

“It’s no matter. He’ll be here eventually. I set up a timed message with the details of our whereabouts set to go off unless I entered the password proving I was all right. Good idea too, seeing as how I was ambushed the moment I walked in and thrown down there,” he shivers again, and she pushes her head back under his chin to close the frigid gap of air he created.

“Is that what spooked them?” she asks despite her growing anger.

“Undoubtedly,” he says and she can feel him grin. “I triggered my phone to send another message that looped back around as a decoy from Lestrade saying he was bringing half the Met along with him.”

“But they escaped.”

“Yes. They most likely ran straight to their safe house. The one which they were talking about like imbeciles before they caught me. I managed to fire off the location before they took my phone away.”

“Clever you,” she says, voice dripping with disdain. “‘I’m Sherlock Holmes, and I always work alone because no one can compete with _my massive intellect.’”_

“You’re…angry?” Sherlock asks bemusedly.

“Yep.”

“…Why?”

“You honestly don’t know do you?” Jane asks and pushes away so she could look him in the face. He blinks at her in confusion. “Do you know what could have happened if I didn’t show up? You could have died.”

“But you did show up.”

“Yeah only because I’m probably more insane than you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“You dragged me out of the flat with no explanation except for an off-hand comment about drug dealers, and left me outside a dodgy abandoned warehouse without any instructions except to hold your bloody coat, and then against my better judgment, I entered said warehouse _after_ I saw a group of _said drug dealers_ run out of it.”

“Your point?”

“The point is, Sherlock, you didn’t tell me anything about what you were up to. You kept me in the dark. You didn’t _let me in._ And if I were anybody else, you probably would be slowly freezing to death right now. Why do you ask for my help anyway if you clearly don’t want it?”

“Jane I…do want your help. I just — I’ve never had a colleague before and it’s…different. I’m not entirely sure what all that entails. No one’s ever wanted to put up with me for this long,” he admits. Jane is surprised at his honesty, and is actually stunned out of her rant. She lowers her head against his chest again and chalks it up to the hypothermia.

“I’m not as smart as you, Sherlock. I usually don’t leap to conclusions like you do, and I need you to tell me what’s going on from time to time. Or at least let me know somehow if I need to be there to pull you out of a hole,” she says, and that elicits a low rumble of laughter from him. “We need a better system.”

“Agreed,” Sherlock says and buries his face in the crook of her neck. “Nose is cold,” he mumbles, and she laughs despite herself. He was like an overgrown cat.

“Yeah it is,” Jane says and ties to shrug him off, but he just tightens his hold. Something dawns on her. “Hey, when you get a new phone can you set up another automatic message thing?”

“You mean the timer?” he asks sleepily, warm breath ghosting over her collar bone making her skin tickle. She feels his muscles slacken as he finally begins to relax into their shared warmth.

“Yeah. Something to go off and let me know you’re in trouble if we get separated. A code word or a phrase or something.” She waits for a moment for his answer, but he just sighs gently against her. “Sherlock,” she prods. “We need a code.”

“Vatican cameos,” he murmurs nonsensically already halfway gone to sleep.

“All right, but if you ask me later I’m going to say you came up with it and remind you that we cuddled and you fell asleep on my shoulder just to spite you,” she whispers, and adjusts the collar of his coat against the nape of his neck to keep the draught at bay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I must really love you guys or something. Updating the series twice in one day, shucks, you guys are fantastic. So enjoy! And I really can't tell you how grateful I am to receive your wonderful comments and kudos! Like I said your encouragement fans the flames and I just can't stop writing!


	7. Fiasco

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane and Sherlock have a bit of a domestic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha okay so this is what happens when insomnia meets Sherlock fan fic. Idon'teven...my brain sometimes. I hope you find it adorable and fluffy as much as I do. Sorry if there's mistakes, it's quite late (early) right now and I'm clearly off my head.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [Strange Predicament](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1837006) in part three of this series.

Sherlock was…furious. Which wasn’t a new thing, but what was disconcerting was that all of that white hot fury was, for once, directed solely at Jane. She was used to his annoyance or impatience or general petulance, but this? Unbridled rage? It was new, and in her current state somewhere between ‘fed up’ and ‘not giving a flying fuck,’ it was almost amusing.

After the explosive conclusion of a particularly grueling case that ended in a Mexican Standoff on Waterloo bridge — her own gun pointed at her head while Lestrade leveled one at the suspect trying to talk him down, just before Sherlock caught him off guard and kicked the legs out from under him — Sherlock had engaged in a shouting match with Lestrade that Jane was barely cognisant of, and dragged her off in the direction of hailing a taxi. To which he unceremoniously stuffed her into and slammed the door.

Too exhausted to protest indignantly, she just allowed herself to be ushered about, and even endured Sherlock’s hard glaring as he chose to sit across from her -- as if being in her direct line of sight at all times was a form of punishment. Punishment for what she had no idea.

Just as she was contemplating closing her eyes, he leans forward suddenly, and cups her jaw with the fingers of one hand while he gingerly swipes her loose, tangled hair off of her forehead.

“Ouch!” she hisses as he gently prods the gash over her eyebrow.

“Don’t be an infant,” Sherlock says quietly, however the smoulder is still there in his eyes as he examines the rest of her face. She can feel as his gaze lingers over the throbbing bruise on her cheek, his eyes narrowing even further before releasing her in a huff.

She was just about to ask what his problem was, when she’s cut off by the buzz in her pocket. She pulls out her mobile, and clicks on the inbox.

_Tell 'Himself' that this don’t get him out of paperwork, & I expect to see the both of u at the station first thing tomorrow. And I mean FIRST THING. This is gonna b a disaster as it is & I really don’t want to b accused of cuttin corners.  
GL_

Jane grits her teeth. She wasn’t Sherlock’s god damn keeper.

“Greg is requesting our presence first thing tomorrow at Scotland Yard,” Jane says tetchily.

“Oh god,” Sherlock sighs while rolling his eyes to the ceiling of the cab. 

Frustrated, Jane leans her head against the window, a migraine blooming at the base of her skull. She closes her eyes for just a moment, allowing herself a brief nap before they got to Baker Street.

Her eyes fly open as she is jarred against the side of the window when the cabbie suddenly slams on the breaks. Her temple smacks into the glass. It wasn’t a hard smack, but with the impending migraine, pain suddenly exploded behind her eyes.

“Ow ow ow!” Jane says just as the cabbie curses avidly. Something about ‘bastard fucking traffic jam!’ and she groans again. Of course they would be stuck in traffic. As if the day wasn’t already bad enough. She hunches over and puts her head in her hands.

“Jane?” Sherlock says, suddenly alert. “What’s wrong?”

“Shh!” Jane says. She digs her fingertips into her scalp and massages.

“Jane?”

“Shut it, Sherlock. Seriously.”

“Jane I think you should know —”

“Sherlock,” Jane says cutting him off. She squeezes her eyes shut even tighter. “Please be quiet. Usually I let you run off at the mouth, but right now I’m not in the mood to entertain you during this ridiculous traffic jam. So if you could just suffer the boredom like the rest of us in peace I would be immensely grateful.”

She hears him sniff disdainfully, and they spend the next half hour in simmering silence.

…

When they finally, _finally_ make it back to Baker Street, Jane is in a right foul mood. And when the cab pulls to a stop Sherlock leaps out, and literally slams the door in her face, which causes another spike of pain to shoot between her eyes. Oh and _of course_ he sticks her with the fare that’s well over fifty quid. Fucking _brilliant._

By the time she stomps up the stairs, her raging headache has temporarily rescinded due to anger.

She finds her man-child of a flatmate sitting haughtily in his armchair with the paper in front of his face.

“ _What_ is your god damn problem?” she shouts. He regards her indifferently from over the top of his paper for a second before ignoring her pointedly. She storms over and snatches the paper out of his hands.

He sighs. “Now you want to talk?”

“Don’t be difficult,” she snaps.

Suddenly, Sherlock’s tepid apathy shifts to that boiling rage once more. He jumps to his feet and looms over her.

“I’m not the one who makes things _difficult_ , Jane,” he spits. She looks up at him, incredulous. 

“Hang on…are you actually _blaming_ me for what happened on the bridge today? Is this what this is all about?”

“You were careless!” he roars. “It only took one second, Jane. One second for you to become disorientated for a _murderer_ to take your gun and nearly blow a hole in your skull!”

“Well I’m sorry if I couldn’t help it if the man pulled my hair out when I bloody _tackled the bastard to stop him from stabbing you!”_ her voice ends in an indignant shriek. It wasn’t her fault that the wind picked up and caused her hair to cover her eyes while she had him at gunpoint. It’s not like she could control the _weather._ “If it’s so inconvenient for you maybe I should just cut it all off!”

Sherlock’s ready made retort abruptly dies in his throat. Instead he says, “What? Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not cutting off your hair.”

“Sorry?” Jane says.

“You can’t cut your hair, Jane. That’s not an option.” The heated argument they had been having had suddenly taken…some kind of turn, and Jane is admittedly lost.

“Um…I think that’s my decision. Y’know. It’s my hair.”

“Wrong. It wouldn’t be your decision, it would be forced upon you due to circumstance,” Sherlock replies.

“And that’s…no good?” Jane says a little thickly. The pounding in her head was back, and she couldn’t quite understand why they were arguing about her…hair.

“Of course it isn’t, Jane. It’s contrary to your nature. You hate being controlled, have been ever since you were discharged from service. Anything conformist makes you cringe. If it didn’t you wouldn’t have let your hair grow out to the length it is now.”

“Maybe I just haven’t had time to go to get a trim,” she says raising her chin. She doesn’t want to acknowledge that maybe Sherlock is a little bit right, now that she thought about it. After it grew past the awkward stage, the thought of her cutting it or smoothing it back into its customary bun never appealed to her.

“We both know that’s not true,” Sherlock says, his voice softening a little. “It makes you who you are, regardless of its inconvenience.” He absently tucks an errant strand behind her ear.

She blinks up at him, surprised. Sherlock always had an eerie way of revealing things about Jane that even she didn’t know until it was put to words. “So what do you suggest we do about it?” she asks a little weakly. Between the adrenaline crash and the nagging headache, she’s suddenly shattered.

Sherlock frowns, a new puzzle at his fingertips. “I’ll think of something. Go tend to that cut in your forehead,” he says and pulls out his mobile.

“You always do,” she says rolling her eyes and heading to the bathroom.

It’s only when she’s affixing a few butterfly bandages to the wound above her eye does she realise how ridiculous that entire argument was. She nearly hits her head on the tap, doubled over in laughter.

“Are you concussed?” Sherlock asks from behind her, his eyebrow inching towards his hairline in amusement. 

“It’s possible,” she giggles wiping her eyes. “A mild one. Barely there, probably,” she says.

“What an astute diagnosis, Doctor,” Sherlock says sarcastically. She grins, and then suddenly winces as her bruised cheek twinges in protest. He comes over to her and inspects the slight swelling, and his eyes darken. “He hit you harder than I realised.”

“Oh I’ve been hit worse,” she replies. “Although, not with the butt of my own gun. That’s a whole new level of humiliation. I’m almost ashamed to call myself a Captain.”

“That reminds me, when we go in tomorrow and talk with Lestrade we tell him that the gun was the suspect’s, and it must have fallen into the Thames during the fray.”

“All right. I’m assuming it didn’t really fall into the Thames, though, right?”

“Of course not. I pickpocket the badges right off the man, surely I can get away with a firearm concealed in my coat in the midst of such a considerable distraction.”

Jane purses her lips as she frowns. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. And I’m almost certain he knows about my gun, Sherlock.”

“Whether he does or not it’ll be less paper work for the all of us. Clearly the utilitarian option is best?” he smirks, and steers her out of the bathroom by her shoulders.

He plunks her on the couch and disappears into the kitchen. “Oh god please say you’re making tea,” she groans, her face really starting to hurt at this point. After a moment she hears the kettle flick on. “Bless you, you eccentric madman, you,” she mumbles with her eyes closed.

“Open,” Sherlock says and hands her a cold pack wrapped in a towel to which she presses against her cheek gratefully. “Sit on the floor with your back to the sofa.”

“Why?” she asks but complies all the same.

“I think I have a solution to our problem,” he says and settles in behind her, one long leg on either side. “Would it be too much for you if you attempted to multitask?” he sneers.

“No, you git. What’s this about?”

Instead of answering, Sherlock hands her his phone where there is a diagram up on the screen with step by step instructions. She twists around to look at him her mouth slightly agape and eyebrows raised.

“Shut up and hold it steady,” he snaps peevishly, and Jane snickers but does as she’s told holding it up like some sort of Statue of Liberty and Sherlock sets to work, his long fingers twining in and out of her hair.

It takes a bit longer than she thought, Sherlock having to start over a couple of times with a muttered curse of _‘Damn!’_ or _‘Blast!’_ or her favourite _‘Stecore!’_ which if she had to guess, was Latin for something not nice. Leave it to Sherlock Holmes to make swearing sound posh.

Jane felt her arm getting heavy rather quickly, and after her wrist was yanked up for the second time, Sherlock just snatched it back from her saying he got the basic principle of the thing anyway. Which was fine with her, because she was beginning to relax under his ministrations, her eyes drooping as his cool fingers caressed her scalp.

Finally, after what seemed like a long time Sherlock announced: “There. Finished.”

“Hm?” Jane hums and traces her fingers over the top of her head. Her index finger follows the elegant ridge of the French plait all the way to the tip. “Sherlock Holmes. How very domestic of you,” she teases fondly.

“Oh please,” he scoffs. “It’s the most practical solution to keep the hair out of your eyes, and it shouldn’t fall out no matter who you tackle in the future. Besides, now that I’ve done it I can teach you so you can from now on.”

“Who says I have the patience for this?” she says and laughs as she hears the familiar shutter noise behind her that meant Sherlock was taking a picture with his phone.

“You don’t think you have the patience to plait your own hair? What kind of girl are you?”

“The kind who could hardly be arsed about her hairstyle half the time,” she snorts.

“It’s not about appearance, Jane. It’s about utility.”

“You are ridiculous.”

“You’re the one always saying we need to have these systems in place. If you won’t do it, I will. Besides, there’s a tutorial on something else I want to try,” he says, and begins to unthread the weaves of her hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> C'mon, Sherlock. Admit it. You just want to play with Jane's hair cuz it's purty.


	8. Promise: Or the Love Song of Jane Watson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane's past haunts her, but there is always one constant in the darkness: Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is basically Jane's back story told in vignettes. If it seems deliberately vague there's a reason. There are brief allusions to bigger things, and if you can guess them kudos to you. But I didn't want to reveal everything in one go because this is 'Afters' and I wanted to leave the rest for the main arc. I hope you like it, and I really appreciate all of your lovely comments.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [Nowhere Hours](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1854912) in part three of the series.

She was a doctor, and he was a nurse. They met in the aftermath of a raid where the air was hot and close, and smelled of death under that hateful tent.

It was the first time she couldn’t manage to save a single person.

“It’s not supposed to get easier no matter what they tell you in med school,” he said. He sits next to her on that smooth boulder she would go sometimes to think. He hands her his canteen.

“How do you not let it affect you?”

“I don’t. They all affect me, because if they didn’t their life wouldn’t mean anything.”

“Then why do this?” she said, her voice torn. “Why bother?”

“Because. It’s worth it if there’s at least one that you can save.”

“Then what about days like today?”

“Days like today…” he trailed off, and rubbed his chin. “They’re meant to remind us that we aren’t God.”

She drew in a ragged breath, and blinked back her tears.

…

She worked better when he was by her side. Faster. More confidently. He knew what she needed before she even asked. And always, on a bad night they would sit together on that rock that was quickly becoming theirs, and share sips of water from a canteen pretending it was something stronger.

“Bit not good, tonight Jane,” he’d sigh wearily.

“Yeah,” she’d reply. “Bit not good tonight.”

He laced her fingers with his and they would sit there until dawn.

…

Being in the tent wasn’t enough. She was sick of the futility.

 _“Infantry Medic?_ You could be killed out there!” he roared.

“I’m _dying_ in here!” she shouted back. He turned his back on her breathing heavily in his anger; in his fear. “Don’t you see? By the time they bring them to us, it’s too late,” she said in a shattered voice.

“I’m going with you,” he said and wouldn’t look at her.

…

Their company was attacked and near slaughtered one day during a field expedition. Only the two of them were left alive and taken captive.

They shared a small concrete room for three weeks, completely cut off from the outside world and constantly afraid for their lives.

They shared stories about their childhoods, and jokes from the past.

They shared breath when the nightmares came and they could do nothing but cling to each other.

They shared the heat of the night, and skin like an island because they knew it might be their last. 

Their sweat mingled, and their lips crashed, and they made their own violence in the dark to cancel out the violence that plagued their waking dreams.

And after, she looked up at him and his green eyes glittered like emeralds in the moonlight. It was beautiful and terrible all at once.

“Promise me that we will make it back to London because when we do, I’m going to marry you,” he said, his voice like crushed silk.

She couldn’t stop the tears then, because there was no way she could promise such a thing. So she simply cried into his shoulder while he held her close and whispered her name.

“Jane. Oh, Jane.”

…

They brought them out from time to time to work on their injured.

They were silent and cooperative, and worked like two parts of a whole.

They observed their enemy, and gathered a strategy.

He stole the key to their cell during the twelfth week.

“Not yet,” he said and hid it in the crack of their wall. “We have to wait.”

…

Sick, hot. 

Jane feels him rubbing her back as she retches miserably in the corner.

“It’s all right. We’re going to get out of here soon. I promise.”

…

Thunder.

Not the kind that comes from the sky. Jane, delirious, was woken to the urgency of cool hands, and late afternoon sun slanting through the bars of their window.

Firefight. Gunshots. Explosions. 

It was time.

…

He drags her by the hand through the camp, dodging from tent to tent, vehicle to vehicle. He stops and looks around, leaving her standing by the side of a building. She doesn’t understand why he suddenly starts running towards her until she sees the glint of the sniper rifle in the building adjacent from them. 

He tackles her just as the bullet tears through them both.

…

Jane screamed in frustration when her knees buckled under his weight for the tenth time. Her shoulder burned in agony, and her exhaustion finally got the better of her and they sank down into the sand.

“You have to go now, love,” he said and then coughed, blood flecking his lips.

“I’m not,” she said fiercely, tears streaking down her face. She tried to lever him up again but he cried out in pain. 

“Stop, stop, Janey!” he gasped, “I’m done. I can’t.”

“No! No you’re not!” she said and hauled him up again. She dragged him to a shady area sheltered by some scrub and a large boulder. “I’ll be back for you!”

He grabbed her wrist, eyes wild and fierce. “Promise me, Jane. You _will_ make it back to London.” He placed his other hand over her stomach, tears flowing freely. She brushes his dark sweaty hair out of his eyes and kisses his forehead.

“We both will,” she vowed blinking away the spots and burst of light from her vision. If she was going to do this she had to go now.

…

Hot. Too hot. Tacky blood clinging to her front. She didn’t know how, but she found herself face down in the sand. She wills her self to get up and keep walking.

She struggles to her feet then doubles over almost instantly. A gush of hot blood makes her thighs sticky, and the pain in her shoulder is like no other. She collapses next to the road.

_Please, God. Let me live._

…

She wakes later in another tent with unfamiliar voices all around and her whole body is a vector for pain. 

Someone is trying to ask her questions, and the words sound funny…American she thinks just before the darkness swallows her again.

…

When she wakes fully lucid for the first time, six weeks have passed, and she doesn’t have to ask them. She knows.

She finds that it’s hard to want to live after they’ve taken and destroyed the only piece she had of him. 

The only piece that survived.

His name is on her lips when she falls asleep that night, and in the morning everything is Grey.

…

They’ve ruined her. Emptied her out with nothing but a jagged scar to tell the story of her loss; a fissure from rib to hip. 

Never again.

Part of her tells herself that she doesn’t mind. She knows she’s broken.

She knows she’ll never love.

Her love bled out on the sand under the Afghanistan sun.

She is vacuous.

…

Her nightmares come in pieces, and she never knows which one it will be. Sometimes she wakes with nothing more than an ache in her chest, and sometimes she wakes screaming in phantom pain.

When this happens there is one thing that is certain above all else; one thing that is a constant that anchors her to the present. That when Jane cries out in the night, Sherlock is already there pulling her against him. Reminding her that she is no longer alone.

He brought her colours back. 

He fills the emptiness inside of her that was present for so long.

He is her secret, and she cradles it close to her heart.

He is half asleep already, and just as he drops off she clutches his hand and holds it tight against her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: My military knowledge in general is very spotty so that adds to the vagueness. Sorry in advance. Heh.


	9. Insomnia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock has a Burn Out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huzzah! Back to back chapters! We've talked about Jane's sleep disorder, and now onto Sherlock. After all he's everyone's favourite insomniac. This is my take on why headcanon dictates that he goes days and days without sleep.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [Nowhere Hours](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1854912) in part three of this series.

(Thirteen…fourteen…no thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…no…fourteen? Thirteen?)

Sherlock’s vision was doubling, and he shakes his head before peering back into his microscope.

“Sherlock?” Jane says shuffling into the kitchen.

“Jane. What are you doing up? You should be sleeping.”

She huffs a laugh. “You should talk. It’s nine in the morning. Have you been to bed at all?”

He pulls back from the microscope and blinks rapidly. (Morning? That can’t be right…) He gets up and crosses to the sitting room and yanks back the curtains. Sure enough golden sunlight streams in through the window stabbing at his eyes. He stumbles back for a second and digs his fingers into his eye sockets.

“You bloody vampire,” Jane teases and pushes a cup of tea into his hands. He stares blankly down into the swirling liquid. He was about to do something…but what was it?

“Sherlock? You okay?” Jane asks, concern colouring her voice. She’s moved to the other side of him now and he jumps violently. The tea sloshes over his hand. It’s no longer hot, but more of a tepid. (Is he…losing time? No it can’t be. Not this again…)

“Yes! Of course!” he snaps waspishly, irritation prickling the back of his neck. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’ve been staring down at your tea for ten minutes,” she says slowly.

“I – what? No I haven’t,” he says, and the prickling feeling is slowly ebbing its way into dread.

Jane looks at him in the face, and puts her hand on his forehead, thoroughly worried now. Sherlock wants to push her away, angry at her mollycoddling, but her hand feels deliciously cool against his skin. He settles for an indignant grunt.

“You feel a bit warm. Are you ill?”

“No I feel fine,” he says, and before she can pester him any more his text message alert chimes. He pulls it out of his trouser pocket and scrolls through impatiently. “Come on, Jane. Lestrade has a case for us,” he says and turns away from her. Jane frowns at him, but follows anyway.

*

“Is he all right?” Lestrade asks her as they both stand there watching Sherlock examine the corpse of an elderly man. He squeezes his eyes shut for the third time and shakes his head.

“Um. I’m not sure,” Jane says. “I caught him staring at his tea as if it held all the answers to the universe, and this morning he didn’t even realise that a whole day had passed.”

Lestrade’s gaze sharpens, and he tenses his jaw. A look of recognition comes across his face. “When was the last time he slept?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really keep a log or anything,” she tries to joke, but it falls flat when Lestrade mutters a curse under his breath. “Greg? Why, what’s wrong?”

“Burn out,” he says, and before Jane can ask what that even means, he’s making his way over to Sherlock. He gets there just in time as Sherlock rises from his crouch and proceeds to list sideways. Lestrade steadies him just before he loses his balance. “There you go, hey?”

“Lestrade,” Sherlock says urgently, his eyes wide and wild. “You’re looking for the secretary. It’s because of the ink, you see? The ink on the top of his sock.”

“Okay, lad. We’ll check it out first thing,” Lestrade says gently and lowers him against the wall. Jane is taken aback at how soft Lestrade’s tone is, and this makes her worry even more.

“Greg, what did you mean by ‘burn out?’” she asks kneeling likewise next to him. Sherlock stares straight ahead with that catatonic expression that makes her stomach churn.

Lestrade waves a hand in front of his face. “He used to get like this when he went too long without sleep. Some sort of condition that developed after the drugs.”

“You have to arrest the secretary, Lestrade,” Sherlock says his eyes snapping back in focus. He squeezes them shut again and clenches his jaw.

“Oh, Sherlock. I thought you were through with this?” Lestrade says sympathetically. He cups his jaw. “Hey? Look at me, son. Let me see your eyes.”

Sherlock opens them with a hiss of pain. Jane can see how dilated his pupils are, the right one slightly smaller than the left. Jane can feel a slick of nausea settle low in her stomach.

“Should we take him to hospital?” she asks.

“Nothing they can do, really,” Lestrade says, and Sherlock begins to mutter under his breath, his hands clenching and unclenching in Lestrade’s jacket. “He just needs to sleep.”

“I don’t need to sleep,” he says. “It’s only Wednesday. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, you git. And it’s Sunday besides,” Lestrade says and lays the back of his hand against his sweaty forehead.

“What’s wrong with the Freak, then?” Sally Donovan says striding into the cordoned off office.

Sherlock moans and slams his eyes shut.

“Not now, Sally. Can you draw the blind, there,” he says.

“Why?” she asks, baffled.

“Just do it, all right?” he barks. She jumps and hastens to pull them shut.

“Lestrade?” Sherlock calls out suddenly the panic evident in his voice.

“Right here, lad,” Lestrade says.

“I – I made a mistake,” he sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth. “Everything is too loud. All of the screens are on and I can’t turn them off. Can’t shut down.”

“Do I need to call an ambulance?” Donovan says warily.

“No just please leave, we’ve got it handled. I want you to get to work on finding Mr. Godfrey’s secretary.”

“On it,” she says, and scurries out of the room grateful to leave.

“Where’s Jane?” Sherlock says suddenly, his eyes still tightly closed.

“I’m right here, Sherlock,” she jumps up and places her hand on his forearm. He flinches at the touch at first, but relaxes immediately.

“Apple blossom, and spearmint,” he murmurs. “Lestrade!” he says beginning to shake and shiver.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you. we’re getting you back home now so you can rest. Sound good?”

“Yes. I – I can’t go out like this; the sun…” he trails off.

“Yeah I remember,” Lestrade says and pulls a pair of sunglasses out of his inside pocket, and slips them over Sherlock’s eyes.

Sherlock grabs Lestrade’s wrist. “I’m sorry,” he says meekly, and Jane has never heard him sound so lost or so young. She’s practically reeling.

“It’s okay, son. You just caught us a murderer probably,” Lestrade grins, and levers him up with an arm around his waist. Jane goes on the other side and drapes his other arm over her shoulders. They make their way down the corridor.

“Please, Lestrade. I _did_ just catch you a murderer. There’s no ‘probably’ about it. Get h-her in for questioning and she’ll tell you everything. Ink stains. It’s their daughter she’s trying to protect. She’s only fourteen by the looks of the photo on Godfrey’s desk. You have to save her, Lestrade,” he says suddenly, his voice tight.

“That’s what I do, innit?” he says.

“No, you have to save her from becoming like me,” Sherlock says and he stops abruptly, curling his fingers tightly into the other man's shoulder as he looks at him. “You have to save her from becoming like me,” he repeats. “The probability of the girl falling into a life of drugs or prostitution has increased tenfold with the absence of both parents.”

“Hey? I won’t let nothing like that happen. We’ll get the girl a _guardian ad litem_ straight away. You remember Mrs. Heston, yeah? She’s the best.”

“She’s the best because I picked her,” Sherlock says, and Lestrade laughs.

“How could I forget? There see? It’s all sorted,” he says and they continue to make their way out of the building and towards Lestrade’s police cruiser.

Jane is in a daze as they somehow manage to deposit Sherlock in the back. “I’ll sit with him,” she says at Lestrade’s concerned glance.

“All right. Probably for the best. Wouldn’t want him to forget where he was. That would send him into a tizzy.”

“What do you mean?”

“When he’s like this, sometimes he forgets he’s through with all that. Sometimes he has flash backs of his dark days. S’why he hates police cars.”

Jane doesn’t need to ask any more questions. If anyone knows of flashbacks, it’s her. She slides into the seat beside him.

Sherlock’s forehead is pressed to the window, and he mumbles something under his breath.

“What’s that, Sherlock?” she says leaning in close.

“I don’t want to go back to rehab,” he whispers.

“You’re not, love,” Jane says and pulls him to her so he can rest his head on her shoulder.

“Jane?” he asks. “You’re here?”

“Yes. See? Everything’s going to be all right.”

“Where are we going?”

“Home. Where you are gonna sleep for at least twenty hours. And when you wake up I’m going to kill you for letting it get this bad,” she says softly. He chuckles at this and curls into her.

“Jane?” he says after a moment.

“Yes, Sherlock?”

“You called me love.”

“Did I? Must have just slipped out,” she says a little surprised. It just felt right at the time. She didn’t give it much thought, really. “Does it bother you?”

The only reply she receives is a small hum and a shuttered sigh.

She called him love. 

For the first time in a long time she actually meant it.

Well fuck. What is _that_ supposed to mean?

For the rest of the ride back to Baker Street, Jane contemplates her enigma of a flatmate, her cheek resting atop his head as he breathes deeply against her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to everyone who has read and taken the time to comment. You guys add fuel to the flame for sure.


	10. In Any Capacity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a late night, and for once, The British Government has nothing to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates galore! (Seriously -- no life.) (And I kinda sorta love you guys.) I thought it would be fun to throw some of Mycroft's POV in here.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [Nowhere Hours](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1854912) in part three of this series.

Mycroft Holmes flicks on the small monitor and reclines back in his office chair with a tumbler of scotch resting on his knee. The Davers Reports were wrapping up nicely, and his phone conference with the Chinese Prime Minister was postponed until further notice. So, for the first time in what felt like a long while, he found himself with nothing to do.

It was time to see what his little brother was up to. After all, someone needed to test the new model surveillance cameras MI5 recently came out with.

He watches the screen as Sherlock sways with the music of his violin. From the way the man threads himself through the phrases of the piece, Mycroft can tell it’s something of Debussy’s*. Sherlock always did have a fondness for that particular composer, and Mycroft wishes he could hear it. (The audio was off, he’d have to make a note for IT.) 

He wonders where Jane Watson is for a moment before he glances at the clock as realises it is quite late. She must be asleep, then. Which was a shame, really, seeing as how she was just as interesting as Sherlock to watch. She was a novel concept. Someone so ordinary on the outside, and yet so full of surprises. She was a contradiction, like Sherlock said. With one hand she can heal the sick, and the other she can shoot a man between the eyes from over five hundred yards. He’s read her dossier. She could have made it as a sniper, a good one too, but chose instead to tend to the wounded. The combination made for someone both very compassionate, and very lethal.

And there’s also the no-nonsense way she handles his brother, which always makes for a good laugh. He’s not wrong often, but for once he’s glad he was about Jane. Daresay it, she was even _good_ for him. Albeit in some weird, backwards way.

Ah well. It seemed like nothing particularly interesting was going on tonight, and he goes to switch off the monitor.

He pauses when he sees Sherlock suddenly stop, his bow mid stroke for a moment before starting up again. He plays for a bit before stopping again, and this time he actually lowers the violin and faces the rest of the sitting room. His gaze lingers on the hall just outside. Mycroft zooms in.

He watches as his brother cocks his head to the side as if listening intently for something. Sherlock gives a little start and he makes an abortive movement forward before he stops himself. Mycroft leans forward in his chair when Sherlock closes his eyes and his lips begin to move. Upon further inspection, Mycroft can just make out that he appears to be counting. But counting for what?

When Sherlock reaches about thirty, his eyes fly open and he all but tosses the violin on the chair before rushing to the doorway. He pauses, leaning against the jamb for a second before whirling around, his dressing gown flaring out around him. He hurries off in the direction of the kitchen for a moment, and out of the sight of the camera. Alarmed, Mycroft leans back in his chair and fumbles for his mobile. Something had Sherlock spooked, and his sudden sentinel-like behaviour spells trouble. Mycroft is just about through with a text sending one of his men over to Baker Street to check for possible intruders when Sherlock comes back into view. 

He looks more agitated than before, and clutched tightly in his hand is, — not a weapon but…a glass of water. (What?)

What’s even more bewildering is the fact that now Sherlock is pacing, lips moving as he talks to himself all the while. Every now and then he stops and holds the water out in front of him, and then shakes his head in frustration before starting the whole thing again. 

Suddenly Sherlock stops one last time and turns sharply in the direction of whatever noise caught his attention. A split second later, he flies out of the sitting room and into the hall. Mycroft just manages to see the tails of his robe whipping behind him as he bounds up the stairs to Jane’s room. 

(Jane’s room? What was he —? Ah yes.)

Jane must be having a nightmare. Which was odd.

Well it wasn’t odd for her to be having night terrors, no. In fact it was warranted given the PTSD and the (former) therapist. What was _odd_ was the fact that Sherlock was…perturbed by the matter.

No not only perturbed. (Anxious, flustered, worried.) _Concerned._ For her. If the water was anything to go by. And the pacing.

Mycroft is yet again surprised, and he leans back in his chair. He brings his hands, prayer-like up against his lips as he contemplates the now empty sitting room.

This was truly unprecedented. Jane has once again, wormed her way into his brother’s life and has all but dug her hooks in. Yes, he admitted there was some sort of allure at the beginning. She was a walking contradiction, and Sherlock always loved a good puzzle, but this? _Sentiment?_ It was uncalled for.

Mycroft thinks back to the last time Sherlock _cared_ for anyone other than himself. He will never forget how far his brother fell after his friendship with that Trevor boy ended so tragically. There was a time when Sherlock was hooked up to tubes and IV lines where Mycroft thought he would never come back to him. 

It was when he was shaking apart at the seams during another detox where Mycroft taught him how to keep himself apart from such things; how to protect himself.

And now -- now Sherlock was in jeopardy of making the same mistake all over again. And Mycroft wouldn’t let him.

He types out the text he knows will set things right:

_Caring is not an advantage.  
M_

He’s just about ready to send the message when Sherlock comes back into the sitting room. Mycroft watches as Sherlock paces, slower this time, a hand rubbing his chin in consternation. He lowers himself slowly onto the sofa and presses his palms together under his chin.

It’s his conflicted expression that tells Mycroft that Sherlock knows the predicament he’s let his heart fall into. He rests easy at the knowledge that he will make the obvious, and practical decision and get rid of the problem. Simple. Clean. He taught his brother well, after all.

The Sherlock on the screen leans forward, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He looks up, his eyes landing on something familiar on the mantle. 

Just then the audio from the hidden camera crackles to life just in time for Mycroft to hear his brother’s worn and resigned sigh.

He’s made his decision then. Good. He picks up his scotch.

(It was good right?)

(Of course it was. It was a pragmatic solution.)

(Simple. Clean. Better for everyone involved, surely.)

Wrong.

He snatches up his mobile.

_deletedeletedelete_

_I’m sure there another way for —_

_deletedelete_

_Don’t you think —?_

_deletedelete_

_You are better with her —_

_dele –_

(Wait. Yes that’s right, isn’t it?)

_You are better with her, you know. I wouldn’t make any hasty decisions especially not having slept on it first.  
M_

_SEND._

There was something about this…about Jane and Sherlock together that made some sort of sense, and he would be damned to see them torn asunder before he figured out what exactly that something was.

Mycroft watches as Sherlock marches up to the bookshelf to the left of the mantle and yanks out the hidden camera, an expression of fury on his face that is almost comical. Suddenly he gets a screen full of a toilet bowl just before the feed shorts out and the monitor fills with static. With a chuckle he shuts it off.

Ah well.

He pours another scotch, content his little brother will make the right decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * So if anyone wants to listen to what Sherlock was playing in my head, it can be found [here.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx5a_DUwxus) I like this piece because it reminds me of what Sherlock's mind would sound like, full of volatile shifts and epiphanies. It's rather strange, and I'm pretty sure he would like it for this reason. Any way. Hope you liked this chapter even though it was short. :D


	11. Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't get mad. Get even.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I haven't told you guys how fantastic you are, I should more often. I love the feedback you guys have been giving me on this, and it really boosts my spirits especially as of late. So thanks to all of you who have commented or even just have dropped by and read. It makes me smile especially when the days can be really rotten sometimes. xxHoney
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [Musical Cabs](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1872452) in part three of this series.

_Mr. Science Man – 7:08 PM_  
 _I suppose you think this is funny?_  
SH 

_Sent – 7:25 PM  
I do, yeah._

_Mr. Science Man – 7:48 PM  
Well?_

_Sent – 7: 49 PM  
well what?_

_Mr. Science Man – 7:49 PM_  
 _Are you going to do something about it?_  
SH 

_Sent – 7:52 PM  
oh I suppose. eventually. I’m having a pint with greg right now._

_Mr. Science Man – 7:52 PM_  
 _You’re just going to leave me like this for the foreseeable future, then?_  
SH 

_Sent – 7:53 PM  
problem?_

_Mr. Science Man – 7:53 PM_  
 _Yes. I don’t think you can imagine how inconvenient this is._  
SH 

_Sent – 7:54 PM  
you want to know what’s inconvenient, Sherlock? an ASBO. that’s what. I’ll be back in twenty minutes, keep your shirt on._

*

Sherlock stares down at his phone in his left hand, dismayed as he sits at the table. For the tenth time he tries to dislodge his right hand from where it is curled — stuck with industrial strength adhesive — around a glass beaker. A lovely prank by his wily flatmate. Revenge from when she was mistakenly blamed for tagging the side of the National Gallery. (How childish. It wasn’t anyone’s fault really. Well, aside from Raz.)

He glares at no one in particular, and decides to observe the coagulation rate of thawed blood under his microscope. He goes to adjust the height of the eye pieces, and over corrects with his left causing them to jab painfully into his eye sockets. He pushes it away in frustration and goes over to sulk on the sofa.

Jane comes back about thirty minutes later in a disgustingly good mood, and he curls on his side in a huff.

“Did you have a good night with _Greg?”_ he grumbles to the back of the sofa.

“I did,” she says hanging up her jacket. (She’s just _oozing_ her smug superiority.)

“I hope you know your little prank probably cost a murderer. The experiment I was working on was delicate and extremely time sensitive, and now it’s ruined,” he sniffs disdainfully.

“I’m sure you can repeat it, and all will be right with the world,” Jane says.

“I assume you have the solvent?” Sherlock snips.

“Yes. I wouldn’t just leave you in this state. The fate of murderers and whatnot,” she chuckles and skips up the stairs to her room. She comes back a moment later. “Come on, up you get,” she says and prods him in the back. He whips around angrily, shooting her his most murderous glare. It doesn’t have the desired effect, however, seeing as how she immediately bursts out laughing.

 _“What_ is so funny?” Sherlock says through his teeth.

“Nothing, nothing! Not a thing,” she says wiping her eyes. “C’mon, let’s get you sorted.” He huffs and follows her into the kitchen. She turns on the tap to warm, and stops up the sink giggling all the time.

“Are we even now? Did you get it sufficiently out of your system?” Sherlock says allowing her to submerge his hand in the warm soapy water, beaker and all.

“Aw, I was just having a bit of fun. No harm no foul.”

“For you maybe. No one likes to be proven the fool,” he says imperiously. She takes his hand out and applies a generous amount of the solvent to the seam between his hand and the glass.

“Ah, now you’re getting it,” she says pointedly. “By the way, you’re still coming with me to court. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

“Surely I’ve been punished enough,” he grumbles. She tries to lift one of his fingers from the glass, and he hisses in pain when his skin starts to pull. She dunks in back in the water. “Besides. It seems as if your court date has been cancelled.”

“Cancelled? How do you mean? They don’t just cancel court,” Jane says working his fingers somewhat loose under the water.

“They do if they’ve lost your records,” Sherlock says casually. Jane stops and looks up at him.

“Lost my records?”

“Something to do with a clumsy security system and an underpaid clerk,” he says.

“Did you just —?”

“Please let’s not call attention to the fact that I currently am indebted to my brother,” he sighs.

“Actually, I was wanting to call to attention the fact you did something incredibly nice for someone else,” Jane says only half joking. There was a sincerity and gratitude in her voice that caught him by surprise. (The ASBO apparently bothered her more than she let on.)

“Yes well…on occasion I have been known to — OW!” Sherlock yelps mid sentence as Jane tugs particularly hard on the beaker. “What are you trying to do, strip the flesh from my palm?!”

“Sorry! It’s a lot more stubborn than I thought,” Jane says bringing his hand up to eye level. She pulls again.

“AHH! Stop. _Doing._ That,” he snarls and tries to snatch his hand away.

“Don’t be such a girl,” Jane says holding fast to his wrist. “It’ll only sting for a moment. Like a bandage.”

“No! No definitely not. Why don’t we soak it some more?”

“Sherlock. It’ll be real quick I promise. Just think of something to distract you,” she says.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know…the periodic table?”

“Or how about how many nerve ending are in the human hand, and how the most sensitive — OW dammit Jane! I was being facetious!” he yells again. “It’s not working!”

“Think of something else then!” she says becoming equally frustrated.

“Like what? I can think up to seven different things at once and I _still_ am wont to get bored on occasion.”

“Then shut your brain off for a change.”

“Please. There’s nothing short of a _coma_ that would —” Sherlock’s sentence is abruptly cut off when Jane suddenly stands up on her tip-toes and kisses him on the cheek. (Soft, warm, slightly parted. A whisper of skin and lemon lip balm. Awfully close to his mouth. Actually practically the corner of his mouth. If he had moved his head just a fraction with the height difference it would have made it so —)

“There, see? Easy peasy,” Jane says and sets the beaker down on the counter. He looks down stupidly at his now empty hand.

“How did you…?” he trails off. She’s not really paying attention now, and goes about preparing tea. He leans up against the counter and watches her, content in simply observing how she methodically pours and steeps the tea, making up his cup first (always first, two sugars and a splash of milk) before her own. (She doesn’t use sugar in her tea even though she always dips her pinky in the dish and licks the white crust off the pad of her finger. Why does she do this? He doesn’t know. A habit picked up from childhood most likely. But really it's because it’s Jane. Just Jane. It shouldn't be fascinating, but it is.)

“Sorry about that by the way,” she says joining him against the counter. She inspects his hand and grimaces in sympathy at the redness of his palm. “And…thank you. Really, Sherlock, I mean it.”

“It really wasn’t a hardship,” Sherlock says and sips his tea. “Besides, it’s always fun picturing the look on Mycroft’s face when he realises he has to do bureaucratic leg work. Annoys him to no end.”

“Well what ever the case, thank you,” Jane says, and they stand there for a moment in companionable silence. Finally Jane turns to him with a sheepish expression. “I should probably mention that you might want to go look in the mirror,” she says and bites her lip furtively.

Sherlock glares at her suspiciously before putting his mug down and making his way to the bathroom. He groans when he sees two blackened circles ringing his eyes. Shoe polish it looks like, surreptitiously smeared around the eyepieces of his microscope no doubt.

“JANE!” he bellows, and is only met with the sound of her uproarious laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, though. You guys are awesome. I hope you liked this chapter even though it's a little short.


	12. Another Forkful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane does her own experiments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hah so ever since I watched the Blind Banker and I had the idea for the restaurant scene, I've always been obsessed with Jane feeding Sherlock. I hope you think this is as cute as I do. Enjoy.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [Partners](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1882520) in part three of this series.

When Sherlock was on a case, everything else went to the wayside. Sleep, sometimes hygiene, and most importantly, food. As a medical professional, this last one rankled Jane to no end. 

Apparently Sherlock was under the impression that digestion slowed down his thought process, which was utter nonsense as it were. But he still cast all logic aside, claming his body and its needs was nothing more than ‘transport.’ No amount of nagging or pestering or arguing would change his mind. So…Jane had to get creative.

It was during a particularly grueling case that she stumbled upon it actually, and in all essence it was really quite brilliant. Because there was something to this whole ‘transport’ lark after all. Simply, Sherlock ignored the demands of his body, but his body didn’t ignore its demands. If his growling stomach was any indication.

They were both frayed around the edges when she decided to test her theory, and right when he was in the middle of a sulk, she ordered takeaway.

“It doesn’t make any sense, Jane,” he says dragging his fingers through his hair for the tenth time. 

Jane opens the container of rice and sets it on the table between them. “Start from the beginning. What do you know?” she says. He growls in frustration while she opens the other container of curry.

“Dax Leigh, 47, accountant from Leicester originally. Came to London on holiday,” he muses aloud. Jane forks a cashew, and munches on it, waiting for her chance. “Died in his hotel room seemingly without cause.”

“But you think you know who did it?” she asks.

“I don’t think I know. I _do_ know,” he says. “It was the sister.”

“The sister who’s been dead for ten years now?” she says. It’s the same question she asked forty minutes ago.

 _“Yes,”_ he groans. Jane swears she can actually hear the wheels beginning to rev and turn in Sherlock great brain. She stabs a piece of lamb. “It has to be her based on the picture of her he used to carry around in his wallet. It was due to some misplaced guilt that he carried it, but when he suddenly found out she was alive all this time he felt betrayed and threw it into the garbage,” Sherlock says as he scrutinises the photos of the crime scene. Jane knows he’s talking out loud to himself more than for her benefit at this point, becoming more and more absorbed with the case. He mutters something else under his breath, and Jane figures it’s a good time as any to go for the kill.

She brings the forkful of lamb and rice up to his lips.

At first he doesn’t seem to notice, and she’s about to put her fork down abandoning it as a lost cause. But then at the last second, Sherlock turns his head, and captures the morsel between his teeth, not having taken his eyes off the photographs once. He chews a few times, and then swallows. It’s all she can do to keep from doing a victory jig right there in the kitchen. However, if she’s learned anything from Sherlock, it’s that any good experiment begs to be repeated, so she tries again, this time with a piece of garlic naan.

Just like before, Sherlock absently takes a bite when she offers it to him. 

The best part of this is he’s not even aware he’s doing it, and she has to fight back the giggles as he actually makes a soft humming noise of subconscious approval in the back of his throat. He swallows the naan, and she feeds him another bit of lamb. Conclusion: Sherlock might not think he needs to eat, but his body begs to differ.

“Jane!” he says suddenly, and she nearly drops her fork thinking she’s been made.

“What?” she says trying not to look too guilty. She crams the prepared fork load into her own mouth, stabbing her tongue in the process. Sherlock looks at her suspiciously as her eyes begin to water, but decides not to say anything about her odd behaviour. Instead he brings a picture up to her face.

“What does that look like to you?” he says pointing to a small square wrapper among various other rubbish recovered at the scene.

“Er,” she swallows the bite painfully. “Nicotine patch?”

“Yes I thought so too, but if you look closer you’ll see it’s actually an anti-emetic patch. A strong one too.” Jane takes the picture from him and squints.

“You’re right. You can only get these from a doctor,” she says.

Sherlock snatches back the photo and glares at it, his eyes flicking back and forth over the picture. He stares at it for a solid minute, and Jane waits to be absolutely sure he’s lost in his own head again before trying one last time.

It might be a bit ambitious, but she didn’t join the Army for nothing, so she brings the mug of tea up to hover in front of his mouth.

At first nothing happens, and she thinks that maybe this may have been pushing it but then his lips part, and she cautiously presses the rim between them. Then she slowly begins to tilt it up. She smiles as he slurps once, twice, and when she pulls it away he actually has a moustache curling up at the corners of his mouth. His tongue darts out and swipes at it as he rifles through the notes again.

“Look!” he says. His face lights up in what Jane likes to call his ‘eureka expression’. “Leigh suffered from chronic low blood pressure.”

Jane takes the notes and skims the contents. “A high dose of scopolamine could cause problems with hypotension,” she conceded.

“Would it be possible to trigger a seizure?” Sherlock asks.

“Yes, actually. It’s not unheard of. And if no one was able to get to him, his heart could have simply stopped. You think that’s how she did it?”

“I do. It makes perfect sense,” he says and gets up to retrieve his coat. “Grab your things, Jane. We’re going to go catch us a naughty nurse,” he says with a crooked smile. His wit is diminished severely due to the spot of tea still on his upper lip. She rolls her eyes.

“I don’t think you realise how lame that sounded,” Jane says, and wipes the smudge away with a napkin. He scowls, and turns on his heel.

“Come on. The sooner we wrap this up, the sooner we can eat. I’m famished,” he says, and Jane can’t stop the grin from spreading across her face as she jogs down the stairs after him.


	13. BONUS -- Three Minutes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during the chapter [Partners](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1882520).
> 
> Jane's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a bonus chapter! I got a request from the lovely Wayward_Daughter221b seeing if I could do the whole CPR scene through Jane's point of view, and if I could make it a chapter in 'Afters.' And so this is what I came up with, so I hope you like it my dear. And an incredible thanks as always to you guys who have commented and have told me how much you are liking this series. xxHoney.

_One._

Jane knocks over the vase when she ducks through the window. It shatters to the ground, and she hears the sound of hurried footsteps pounding down the stairs and through the front door.

“Sherlock?” she calls out. She is met with a deafening silence, and her gun is already out of its holster. Her shoes crunch over the shards of ceramic, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Something wasn’t right, and her instinct told her to be vigilant. She felt her skin begin to crawl with that all too familiar feeling, and her senses went on high alert. A trickle of sweat rolls down between her shoulder blades, and she looks beyond to the ominous sitting room. She knew that whatever it was would be waiting for her there.

She levels her gun straight out in front of her, shoulders squared and jaw set, and rounds the corner ready to shoot at the first sign of threat. What she sees instead makes her blood run cold.

There, tied to the radiator is Sherlock, one hand curled under the silk cloth wrapped mercilessly around his neck in attempt to tear at it before he lost consciousness.

She shoves the gun into her waist band and rushes over to his side in an instant, forgetting to breathe herself. 

“Hang on, _hang on!”_ Jane pleads as she scrambles to try and loosen the makeshift noose. His lips, usually a pale pink, are an alarming shade of blue. She tugs with all her might at the knot, her knuckles bleeding white.

_Two._

Finally she manages to loosen the cloth, and Sherlock slumps the rest of the way to the floor, a dark line of bruising already beginning to bloom on his throat. She lays him down, and checks his pulse. There is none, and for a second her vision fades and tunnels out as all of the air in the room is seemingly sucked out of existence. 

(No. Not dead, he can’t be dead. Please God.)

She starts compressions immediately, digging the heels of her palms into his sternum where what little of his remaining oxygenated blood can be pumped through the rest of his body. She knows that every second counts, and she internally tracks the time with the beats of her heart. She knows that permanent brain damage begins to occur around the five minute mark, and she tires not to think about how many people she’s lost in just over three.

Her clinical metronome ticks off the compressions, and she swoops down and captures his lips attempting to breathe for him again and again.

_Three._

She starts on her second round of compressions, pressing harder and harder all the while. The clock inside of her that knows just how many seconds Sherlock has gone without air pounds into her own aching chest, and the alarm bells in her head are at their peak. She can feel her arms shaking from the effort, but she digs in even harder trying not to watch as his chest is jarred over and over, yet still refuses to move. 

_Please God!_

She’s not sure but she thinks she’s pleading aloud at this point.

The third minute is reaching its end.

She presses harder, and covers his mouth with her own.

(Don’t think.)

_“Afghanistan or Iraq?”_

(No. Don’t remember.)

_“You’re a doctor…any good?”_

(Don’t do this, Jane. Keep breathing for him.)

_“That was…amazing.” — “You really think so?”— “Of course it was. Really quite extraordinary.”_

(Compressions. Breaths. Don’t think.)

_“This is my friend, Jane Watson.”_

(Blue lips. Pale face. Still, oh so still.)

_The strains of his violin as they waft up to her room._

_The experiments in the kitchen._

_The body parts in the fridge._

_The way he takes his tea._

_The way he bites his lip before he realises something profound._

_Dozens of paper flowers. Blue and yellow. For her._

_His face, so eager and full of life as he takes her hand._

_His voice when he came to her in the night._

_“Jane?...Are you all right?”_

_In the darkness he curls his arms around her waist gathering her close to his broad chest, and she can feel his heartbeat echo throughout her even in her dreams._

_“…You’re safe…I’m here, remember?”_

“Breathe you stupid idiot!” the tears flow freely down her face, and they taste of salt.

_His eyes, gold and blue, blue and gold as he looked at her with something akin to wonder. “You’re not useless. What I mean is…you are far from obsolete in all that you do…”_

Her arms are getting tired. Three minutes has come and gone. She continues to dig her palms into the centre of his chest, willing his heart to beat.

_“And all you don’t do…”_

(Please, God.)

_“You are necessary…”_

“Come on, Sherlock! _Breathe!”_

(What makes you think you can do this to me? What makes you think you can irrevocably change my life and then leave?)

She twines her fingers into his hair and grips his head on either side. Her arms, like jelly, can barely hold her up.

She covers his mouth with her own one last time.

His lips are soft and cold, and she closes her eyes…

and breathes for them both.

_One._

_Two._

_Three._

(Don’t leave. Never leave.)

Blue and gold. Gold and blue.

He opens his eyes with a gasp.


	14. A Bit of a Kip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane does a trick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha I hope you guys like this even though it's short. This idea popped in my head a little while ago, and I thought it was cute.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [The Paint on the Tracks](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1909951) in part three of this series.

The first time it happened it was at a crime scene. Sherlock was in the middle of his whirlwind deductions when he stops suddenly, his face breaking out in a grin.

“Oh now, look at that,” he says, and Lestrade’s head snaps up from scribbling in his notebook. 

“What?” he says looking ‘round. But Sherlock’s not even paying attention to the crime scene anymore, much too interested in his curious flatmate. He steps around Lestrade and walks up to Jane who is leaning against the door jamb…fast asleep.

“Quiet, you’ll wake her,” Sherlock hisses as Lestrade comes over to stand beside him.

“Is she really asleep?” he asks, his lips quirking up in a half-amused smile.

“Yes. I should think so,” Sherlock says moving to stand directly in front of her. He peers into her face. (A brief flicker of REM.)

“When was the last time she slept?”

“When did this case start?”

“Three days ago?!” Lestrade says. “Christ, you’ll run her intro the ground.”

“M’fine, Greg,” Jane says with her eyes still closed. “Just having a bit of a kip.”

Sherlock waves his hand back and forth in front of her face. This receives an annoyed grumble from Jane.

(Eyes still closed, but senses on high alert. Brilliant. What a _brilliant_ trick.)

“Go do…the thing. I’ll be right here then we can go, all right?” she says adjusting herself so she’s a bit more comfortable, crossing her arms over her chest, eyes still closed in determination.

 _“How_ do you do that?” Sherlock asks with fascination. “You’re actually sleeping, they are micro sleeps, but they are restorative nonetheless. However you remain on the crest of your subconscious, constantly aware of all that’s around you. Is it some form of meditation?”

Jane’s eyes flash open and she glares at him. “Tell you what. You solve this bloody thing and I’ll _teach you.”_

“It’s an Army trick, isn’t it? You taught yourself to combat sleep.”

“Sherlock?”

“Yes?” he says.

“Can you do your deductions from here?”

“Of course,” he says with a puzzled expression. “Why?”

“You look more comfortable,” she says and grabs him by the coat and shoves him against the door frame. Before he has a chance to protest, she leans against him in the same pose, her head coming to rest against his shoulder. “I suggest you solve this thing so we can go.”

“Really, Jane. This is quite childish,” Sherlock says. Jane doesn’t say anything, and Lestrade suppresses a chuckle behind his hand. He rolls his eyes. “Jane I know you can hear me.”

“Mmph.”

“Okay but you better tell me how you do that,” Sherlock says, and launches into his deductions rapid fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever since the last chapter, I've been thinking about how fun it was to write based on a request. So if anyone has an idea for Jane and Sherlock that they want to see I am open for suggestions. Especially with NaNoWriMo coming up. :D Thanks again for reading.


	15. Violin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's violin is an extension of himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. This chapter took a lot of work, and I hope I did it justice. Hopefully all of the links work out. I guess this could be songfic oriented, but not really. Anyways I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. :D
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [Impossible](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1933494) in part three of this series.

Jane knows that when she hears Beethoven, Sherlock is thinking about something complex. The severity of the phrases reminds her of the methodical vigour he uses to attack a problem that frustrates him. He is forceful and almost violent in his acerbity, as well as cutting and precise in his calculations. During such times like the brutality of [Beethoven’s Fifth,](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4IRMYuE1hI) she knows to keep her breadth. And during the times in which he plays something more contemplative, like [‘Concerto in D Major’](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBv077dSO5A) for instance, she knows that he won’t speak for days until he figures out what ever it is that has him hung up. She provides sandwiches and Hobnobs with tea in these cases so he can keep his strength up.

When she hears Mozart, Jane knows that it is due to a flurry of boredom just around the corner. The mercurial and transient shifts lend an almost mischievous atmosphere to their sitting room, and she knows to keep anything of hers he can get into away, and changes the password on her lap top. Jane doesn’t mind so much when she hears Mozart, however, because it forces her out of the hum drum of life that she falls into when all she has is the clinic to look forward to between cases. She takes the time during Mozart’s [‘40th Symphony in G Minor’](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql_9F6pEJw0) thinking of ways to keep them both from falling into a fugue.

When Jane hears Tchaikovsky, it is usually after she wakes up from a nightmare in the dead of night and makes her way down to the sitting room. She learns to associate [‘Violin Concerto Op. 35’](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmopv0yEcEw) with the crackling fire and the stillness of three am. And with the smell of Sherlock as he leads her back to her room when her eyes finally begin to droop. She learns to follow the movement of the Nutcracker’s [‘Pas de Deux’](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHz__g_PEkA) back into slumber.

Later, she figures out [Bach](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfgtlTKPKMI) is almost always for Mrs. Hudson even though the repetition drives him insane. He plays it for her every time she comes up to the flat just to hear her sigh and pat his cheek. He smiles when he thinks no one is looking when she says, “That was lovely, dear,” and Jane can’t help but smile too because she almost always makes them a special cake afterwards.

Occasionally, when she comes home Jane can hear the frightful and dissonant sounds of [Bartok,](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmkDMTU-hb4) or really bad Vivaldi as Sherlock attempts to chase Mycroft out of the flat. The latter usually has the desired effect seeing as how it is quite impossible to talk over the trills and runs of Vivaldi in the middle of [‘Winter.’](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZCfydWF48c) She savours the look on Mycroft’s face as he breezes past her.

There are things Jane wishes she didn’t hear, however.

When it’s Mendelssohn, Sherlock is in the middle of a fierce bout of melancholy, and it’s all Jane can do to get him to say more than one word to her. She doesn’t like seeing him like this, but the way he plays [‘Lieder ohne Worte’](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEealgOO3ik) makes her heart clench, and she can’t tear her eyes away from him as he bends and sways, the notes seeming to curl around his frame like smoke. She knows during these times, he confides his deepest secrets to his violin, and if she let him, he would play and play for days until his wrists were swollen and his fingers raw. During times like these, she waits for the struggle of a drowning vibrato before she gently takes the revered instrument, and guides him to the sofa with his head in her lap until he returns to himself.

And then there is Debussy. Jane doesn’t really know what it means yet when Sherlock plays Debussy’s [‘Violin Sonata’.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx5a_DUwxus) It is fast changing like quicksilver, and she didn’t think it was possible to fit so many volatile emotions into one piece. She doesn’t know what Sherlock is necessarily feeling during these times, but she feels as if she’s about to explode when she listens to it, as if her chest couldn’t possibly contain all of her warring thoughts and feelings. 

Which, maybe that was the point of the piece, she realises as she sits in the armchair with her cup of tea, and long forgotten book as he pulls the bow across the strings. This man before her was greater than anyone she had ever met, and couldn’t be contained much less explained in words. It breaks her heart when she realises that Sherlock had to learn a long time ago to express himself through music when the world refused to listen.

In that instance, she loves and hates Sherlock’s violin.

She loves that it is an extension of him, and if anyone were to watch him play there would be no doubt it was and extension of his soul as well.

However, she hates that this is his only voice, and her only insight into this enigmatic man that she is growing more desperate to want to know.

She wants to know what he thinks, and she always, _always_ wants to know what he feels. Because she knows the lie he tells himself and the others around him is just that: a lie.

He’s not cold and unfeeling.

Perhaps the problem is he feels _too much._

And isn’t that a beautiful thought?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight edit to the Mendelssohn piece. I noticed the link wasn't working. And it's ACD canon compliant. In the original (Study in Scarlet I think), Watson actually mentions that his favourite piece Sherlock plays is Medelssohn's Leider so there we are.


	16. He Carries Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The five times Sherlock carries Jane...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! This chapter is a bit longer to make up for my shorter ones, and I hope you all like it. This is a five-times story, and the plus one will be added eventually so be looking for it! I've had this idea for a while and I am glad I finally got around to it. Oh and be looking for some more Bonus Chapters by some of you lovely readers!
> 
> Thanks as always for reading. xxHoney
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [Impossible](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1933494) in part three of this series.

1.

The first time Sherlock gathers Jane into his arms is after that night at the train tracks when she had toppled over backwards (partially his fault) and hit her head on the metal rail. She had been so exhausted in the cab that she promptly fell asleep against him, and he couldn’t bring himself to wake her when they arrived back at 221. (It was only being efficient in the end. Didn’t want her falling down the stairs to the flat and making everything worse.)

So after he pays the cabbie, he ducks down and pulls her close to him. He slings one of her arms around the back of his neck, and picks her up. She subconsciously clutches him tighter, her head resting against his shoulder. He adjusts them slightly when he is fully upright, and is surprised at her small yet solid frame. He’s momentarily distracted by the citrus and rose scent of her shampoo, and before he realises it, he ducks his head so he can bury his nose in the soft hair at her crown.

He shakes his head a little. (What was he doing?)

Good thing he called Mrs. Hudson. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to manage the door on his own.

2.

The second time happened just after the first, and was rather amusing.

Sherlock was in the sitting room playing his violin when he hears a loud thud coming from the hall towards his bedroom. He puts it back in its case, and goes to investigate.

Jane is sitting in the hall with her knees tented up, an accusatory glare leveled in his direction. Her hair is a tangled mess, and she still has creases on her face from one of his pillows.

“Morning.”

“Where’s my _phone?”_ she says. 

“I assume you want to call your new boss and tell him you’re egregiously late for your first day,” he says and unbuttons his cuffs. (Clearly she stood up too fast, and is having trouble balancing if the haze in her eyes is anything to go by. There’s only one thing for it.) “You needn’t bother, I talked to _Sampson_ earlier.” He wrinkles his nose a bit at the thought of Jane’s new boss. He finishes rolling up his sleeves, trying to remain casual.

“What? You talked to Stephen? Why? Why didn’t you get me when he called?” she says, and pulls herself to a somewhat standing position. (Stubborn. She’s clearly still dizzy.) Sherlock rolls his eyes.

“You were sleeping. And besides, I was the one who called him,” he says and takes a subtle step towards her. (Yes she hit her head, but honestly.)

 _“Why?”_ she says, and Sherlock just looks at her with a look that says – _Really?_ – before swinging her up into his arms again. “What the _hell_ are you doing?” she says and pushes at his chest.

“Shut up this is faster and a lot less painful than watching you bumble about. Now stop moving or I’ll drop you on your head again,” he says and glares down at her. (He glares, but really he’s more amused than he has any right to be.) 

Jane purses her lips and blows a little breath out of her nose before crossing her arms. He smiles as she scowls at the floor, and notices she still smells like her shampoo, but under the surface, she also smells a little like him. He can’t explain the little thrill that runs down his spine as he carries her (slower than he’s able) to the sitting room. Despite her irritation, Sherlock doesn’t miss the way she minutely relaxes against his hold.

3.

The third time Sherlock carried Jane it was considerably less amusing for all involved.

“Here you go, Sherlock,” Molly says and hands him a coffee. “Black two sugars.”

“Thank you Molly,” he says and adjusts the focus on the microscope. (The magnification on this was amazing, he would have to see about upgrading his.)

“Oh Jane. They were having a special so I got you one too,” Molly says.

“Molly, you shouldn’t have,” Jane says politely.

“Clearly she did,” Sherlock grumbles wanting to put and end to the useless small talk.

Jane and Molly ignore him. “Really, thank you. That was kind of you,” Jane says and takes a sip.

“No worries!” Molly says, a blush creeping up her neck and across her cheeks. “Tuesdays are half off on the flavour of the week.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. (Really — silence. Was that too much to ask?)

Molly goes back to what she was doing, occasionally typing on her computer. It’s silent (blessedly) for a few moments, before Jane clears her throat.

Sherlock looks up at her, and sees that she’s frowning down at her coffee. She clears her throat again.

“Molly…” she says, and pops off the plastic lid. She swirls her drink a little.

“Mm?” Molly responds distractedly.

“What —” she clears her throat a third time, and Sherlock sits up straighter in his seat. (Concerned timbre, irritated throat, glassy eyes, pale…too pale.) “What did you say was in my coffee?”

“Sorry?” Molly says finally looking up at her. “Oh, er, just milk like you like. But the flavour of the week was hazelnut. I hope that’s all right?”

Jane’s eyes grow wide, and she nearly drops her paper cup. Sherlock is at her side in an instant already having leapt to his feet.

“Oh…oh no,” Jane murmurs and puts a hand on her clammy brow as she stands from her own stool. Sherlock grips her elbow just as she sways slightly.

“What? What happened?” Molly says, frightened.

“She’s allergic to hazelnuts, Molly,” Sherlock snaps, and begins ushering Jane towards the corridor. “and you have just managed to give her a coffee with the very thing that can send her into anaphylaxis.”

“Sh-Sherlock,” Jane admonishes, her breath starting to come out in a wheeze. “Not her fault.”

“Oh god I am so sorry!” Molly cries pushing open the doors to the lab for them as Sherlock drags Jane towards the lift. “I didn’t know!”

“Not your fault,” Jane tries to reassure, but is interrupted by a cough. “Sherlock. A&E. Epi – epinephrine,” she says to him. Sherlock notices a dark red rash splotching her throat and cheeks and he nods sharply. (Lucky for them they were already in a hospital.)

“The lift’s broken!” Molly says miserably. (Oh _of course_ it was.) There are tears in her eyes, and Jane goes to placate her again, but only manages a long stream of coughing.

“We’ll have to take the stairs,” Sherlock says through his gritted teeth. Jane swallows a few times, and tries to talk, when she is cut off by another traitorous wheeze. Her breath halts in her chest, and she bites her lip as she struggles on pulling long draughts of air through her nose for a few seconds. Sherlock steadies her, his hands gripping her upper arms. Finally when she seems a bit calmer, Sherlock turns around, and clasps Jane’s arms loosely around his neck while simultaneously hoisting her up on his back, fingers curling around the backs of her knees.

“Hi-ho silver?” she chokes out, and Sherlock rolls his eyes. Trust Jane to make the direness of the situation into a bloody _joke._

“Molly, I’ll only be gone a moment. Don’t tamper with my readings,” Sherlock instructs as he shoulders open the door to the stairwell. Another crest-fallen apology is cut off as the door slams shut, and Sherlock starts up the stairs two at a time.

“Sherlock,” Jane says, the end of his name breaking off into a rasp. He feels her lungs rattle and seize against him, and he pushes up the last flight as hard as he can.

“MAKE WAY!” he yells as he bursts out into the hall. He nearly upends a meal cart in his haste as he rounds the corner.

“Sherlock, Jane what —?” Mike Stamford says as Sherlock comes to a screeching halt in front of him, narrowly avoiding knocking the man clean off his feet.

“Anaphylactic shock,” Sherlock says. Mike takes another half a second to look them over before he grabs Sherlock and steers him the other way. He starts to protest before Mike cuts in.

“A&E is too far away. I have an Epi-Pen in my desk,” he says and takes off down the corridor, Sherlock hot on his heels.

They enter the office, and Sherlock sets Jane in one of the chairs kneeling next to her as she grips the arm rests and struggles to breathe. Her wrecked and rusted gasps are probably the worst thing he’s ever heard. 

“Got it!” Mike cries and practically lunges across the desk where Sherlock snatches it and yanks off the cap with his teeth.

“Almost, Jane,” he says and jabs it into her thigh, holding for ten seconds to make sure all of the dose is administered. Absently he rubs the injection site to ease some of the pain while she continues to fight the vice in her chest.

The only sound in the room is of her laboured breaths as they slowly loosen. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply in through her nose and out through her mouth. Sherlock watches her astutely, and notices how her lips seem a bit swollen and red, but other than that the bright patches on her cheeks are beginning to fade in severity.

“Sorry to put you out like that, Mike,” Jane says after she’s got her breath back. She leans forward in the chair hunched over a little, and utterly spent.

“Wasn’t a problem at all,” he says good-naturedly. “I’m glad you ran into me. But you should consider carrying an Epi-Pen with you like I do just in case there is a next time.”

“We’ll look into it,” Sherlock says before Jane has a chance to grumble about being fussed over. She glares at him, and he glares right back entering in a silent conversation of _‘This is really not up for discussion,’_ and _‘You made me abandon an experiment, so yes it is.’_

Just before Jane voices her opinion on the matter, however, Mike’s mobile phone suddenly goes off, the tune of the William Tell Overture slicing through the thick tension.

“Sorry, I have to take this. It’s my wife,” Mike says and ducks out of his office.

Jane purses her lips repressing a grin, and tries not to look at him. Sherlock clears his throat.

“That was fitting given the circumstances,” he says casually, and drums his fingers against her knee, repeating the Overture.

Jane bursts out laughing. “You mean given the fact that you were practically galloping up and down the halls with me on your back like the Lone Ranger?”

“Well, what other circumstance would Rossini be warranted?” he says, a smirk pulling at his own lips.

“You berk,” she says. “Come on. The least you can do is pay for my cab back to the flat.” She gets up only needing Sherlock’s shoulder to steady herself.

“Hi-ho silver,” he quips, and she laughs some more.

4.

The fourth time it happened, it was practically habit.

“It’s just water,” Sherlock says, exasperated. “Come on we have to cross or we’ll lose the suspect!”

“It’s not just water, Sherlock, it’s a river, and I am not about to cross with this ankle,” she growls. “You cross if you want to and I’ll find another way.”

“It’s hardly a _river,_ Jane,” Sherlock says. (Maybe a small stream…well perhaps a creek. A swift one, granted, but still.) “And I thought you said you were fine?”

“I am. I just twisted it a little.” As if to negate this, Jane suddenly slips down the bank a little, hissing as her right foot (her _bad_ foot) becomes tangled in a copse of tree roots. She struggles to maintain her poise even though her grimace of pain is breaking through.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “You should know by now that I never take your word for it,” he stomps over and crouches down to undo her foot. “In fact, I am pretty sure I hate all instances of the word _fine._ So please refrain from using that word, if it’s not too much trouble, unless something is well and truly _fine_ by definition.” He flicks her kneecap.

“Does this mean I get to ban you from saying _obviously?”_

“No,” he says shortly, and snaps apart a root.

“No?”

“No. I happen to use that word correctly.”

“You really think so?” she says wryly gripping his shoulders for balance.

“ _Yes._ Now shut up and stop moving!” he orders, nearing the end of his patience. (How she managed to end up with the blasted roots twisted up in her laces was certainly a mystery. An aggravating one.)

“Fine.”

“Fine!” he shouts. He stops when the realisation hits him, and glares up at her where she stands with her arms folded over her chest in that smug way she does. She smirks, and Sherlock narrows his eyes even further. _“Fine.”_

Before she even gets the chance to register the wicked glint in his eye, Sherlock swoops her up into a fireman’s carry, throwing her gracelessly over his shoulder. 

“Hey!” she squawks and smacks his back. “Put me down I said I’ll find another way!”

“Don’t be obtuse, Jane,” Sherlock says, and steps out into the knee-high water. “Now if you don’t want to end up with soggy clothes and a cold as well as what is clearly a _sprained ankle,_ I suggest you keep still.”

Jane huffs quite loudly, but does as she’s told. He can feel her crossing her arms against his back.

“Fine,” she mutters, and Sherlock is glad she can’t see the fond smile creeping across his face.

5.

Sherlock was skimming through some files on Lestrade’s work computer, completely engrossed when a highly unwelcome voice interrupted.

“Hey, Freak. What do you think you’re doing here?”

Sherlock closes his eyes willing the patience to come. It never did.

“You know, Sally, it simply baffles me how you even made Detective Sergeant in the first place. What does it look like I’m doing?” he snaps.

“Inspector Lestrade told you to go home hours ago,” she says. “He told you to take Jane, but that obviously didn’t happen.” She indicates Jane’s sleeping form on the small sofa in Lestrade’s office.

(Hours ago? Jane? Oh…right.)

Sherlock gets up and walks over to the sofa. He sees that she commandeered his coat as a blanket at some point, and he tucks it more securely under her chin. She shifts minutely, and Sherlock is shocked to find that she has the symptoms of a fever. (Was Jane sick? Why didn’t she say anything? Oh of course she wouldn’t. She’s terrible at things like this.) Guilt suddenly ripples through him. He should have noticed the signs before he dragged her out into the rain and all over London.

“Jane is perfectly fine. And besides, I’m sure Lestrade is more concerned with getting Leblanc and his gang off the streets,” he sniffed.

“You know,” Donovan begins, “he’s too fond of her to say it, but I don’t care either way. From what I see, Lestrade thinks you’re no good for her, and I agree. You’re a bloody danger to your own self much less hers.”

“Jane is a grown woman. A soldier,” Sherlock retorts trying to keep his voice down. He sneaks a glance at her, but she’s completely dead to the world. “She can make her own decisions.”

“Lestrade says she’s reckless,” Donovan says, a gleam of malice in her eyes. “Says he worries about her.”

“Of course he does. They’re family. Or as good as,” Sherlock says.

“He says she doesn’t see that she isn’t a soldier any more. She doesn’t see what you do to her sometimes,” she says, coiling for the kill. “But _you_ do.”

Sherlock narrows his eyes, trying to keep his temper in check. “What are you on about?”

“You see everything. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed,” she says gesturing to Jane again.

Sherlock scoffs disdainfully even though he feels like he’s suddenly lost his footing. He bends over and lifts Jane into his arms. “Tell Lestrade to keep me posted,” he says imperiously and shoves past her on his way to the door.

“Tell me. What’ll happen if you get her killed?” she says, her voice quiet, but not lacking in inertia as it hits him like a blow from behind. “Did you ever think about that?”

He pauses for a fraction of a second before stiffly walking out of Lestrade's office.

He carries Jane through NSY headquarters, deep in thought. 

(Of course he thought of it. Of course he saw. But he couldn’t get rid of her. He tried to talk himself into that scenario once before, and the only conclusion was that he was just too selfish to let her go.) 

He tightens his grip on her slightly.

“That woman is an idiot,” Jane mumbles against him, her eyes still closed. He didn’t know she was awake, and so he stops and looks down at her, startled.

In the stillness of the corridor it’s just them, just Jane, and so Sherlock takes a breath.

“What if she’s right?” he confesses, shocked that he even voiced it.

Jane’s fever bright eyes flutter open. She fixes him with a look. “And you’re going to start listening to her _now?”_ she whispers. "Then you're an even bigger idiot than Donovan," she says, a tired smile making her lips curve upward.

(Good point.)

He attempts a smirk, and she hums contentedly, her eyes falling closed again.

“Let’s go home,” she sighs, and it isn’t until much later when he realises that this was the first time she’s ever referred to their flat as such.

“All right,” he says in a low voice, and continues to make his way down the corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just listen to the finale of the William Tell Overture and tell me that it doesn't remind you of horses. Lol


	17. BONUS -- Dog Day Afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a new lodger at 221b...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello you guys! This is another bonus chapter requested by the lovely [donnabella2k7](http://archiveofourown.org/users/donnabella2k7/pseuds/donnabella2k7). Her prompt was "Can you write one with Jane finding a puppy and bringing it back to Baker Street? Maybe some jealousy in sues when Jane is more attentive with the puppy than she is with Sherlock" and I was like um, YES. So I hope I did this justice, and I hope you like it dears. Thanks for the prompt by the way it was really fun, and I could have just kept going and going on this one.

It had been a long day at the surgery complete with screaming children and cantankerous old people, and Jane had so had it with everyone that she decided to walk home instead of deal with the idiotic herds of cattle that occupied the Tube. (Christ, Sherlock really was rubbing off on her.) About a block away from Baker Street she had fallen into a right fugue, and was so wrapped up in her brooding she nearly stepped right off the kerb and into oncoming traffic. 

Before she could be smeared into an unattractive stain on the street, however, a loud piercing bark cut through her reverie making her jump back onto the pavement instinctively. At the same moment, a cab clips past narrowly missing her, the cabbie giving her the two-fingered salute for good measure.

After her heart settles back where it belongs anatomically, she turns around and sees the dog — and Irish Setter by the looks of it — damp and dingy, sitting next to a small shop.

“Hello? Is it you I have to thank for saving my life, then?” she asks as she kneels down in front of him. He whines and wags his tail, and she takes that as permission to give him a good scratch behind the ears. “Where is your family? You’re much too handsome to be a stray.” He ducks his head and presses it against her knee. He whimpers, and holds up a paw. “What’s wrong, 'fella?” she says and inspects the leg.

The dog yelps under her prodding even though she is trying to be as gentle as possible. There was a small gash that she could see, but she worried the problem was something bigger like a fracture. She searches for a tag attached to the grey collar, but can’t find one.

“Well, there’s nothing else for it,” she says and carefully lifts her little charge into her arms. The least she could do was try to patch him up and feed him. Then hopefully she would be able to find who he belonged to. “You’re coming home with me.”

…

“Mrs. Hudson!” Jane calls while thumping the front door with her foot. She adjusts the dog in her arms and grimaces when the poor thing lets out a whine. “Shh, I’m sorry! I know we’ll get you sorted in just a mo.” The dog, as if in understanding, rests his head on her shoulder for a cuddle.

“Jane what’s — _oh!”_ Mrs. Hudson says when she opens the door.

“I know you don’t really want any pets in the flat, but he’s hurt and I —” Jane starts, but is promptly cut off by a wave of Mrs. Hudson’s hand.

“Oh don’t be silly, bring the poor dear in!” she says and ushers them inside her flat. “You sit on the floor with him and I will go get some supplies.”

“Supplies?” Jane asks, and settles on the embroidered rug against the settee. Trust Mrs. Hudson to be stocked to the gills and prepared for anything. “You’re in good hands fella,” Jane says to the dog, and he rests his head on her knee.

Mrs. Hudson comes back a moment later with a cold pack, a bottle of pills, and a hunk of cheese. She twists off the cap and pulls out a tablet before carefully lowering herself likewise to the floor.

“Hello, darling,” she coos, and the dog raises his head. She stuffs the pill into the cheese and holds it out for him to take. He sniffs it tentatively before licking it out of her palm, tail wagging happily. Jane grabs the bottle of pills and eyes it suspiciously.

“This is a veterinarian grade anti-inflammatory,” Jane says, a curious smile tugging her lips at her enigmatic landlady.

“Yes, dear. I used to be a vet assistant, didn’t you know? Mrs. Turner’s Yorkie has hip dysplasia, and I called in a favour from one of my colleagues back in Florida,” she explains absently, continuing to pat the dog’s head. “Let’s have a look-see at that leg,” she says, and as gently as she can, lifts up the injured paw.

“I worry it’s fractured,” Jane says, kneading the fur between the dog’s shoulders as he whines plaintively.

Mrs. Hudson frowns, and flexes the paw gently. She hisses in sympathy when the dog whimpers. “I know, love.” Then to Jane, “Not fractured, just a bit of a sprain. It’ll have to be iced for a couple of days, and then after, warm compresses. Between the two of us we should be able to manage to get the poor thing settled up.”

“Right,” Jane says, impressed at the authority and knowledge Mrs. Hudson seems to posses. She was like a walking search engine, equipped with animal first aid as well as a number of home remedies and a killer recipe for Bubble and Squeak.

“He can stay down here until Wednesday, but I will have to ask you to take care of him once he’s able to move around a bit more. I’ve got a hip, well you know.”

“That sounds fair,” Jane says.

“Where did you find him anyway?” Mrs. Hudson asks as she wraps the cold pack around the dog’s leg, and secures it with an Ace bandage.

“On my way home from work. He stopped me from being hit by a cab,” she admits ruefully.

“Well aren’t you a little hero?” Mrs. Hudson says to the dog, and scratches under his chin. He closes his eyes, mouth opening so his tongue could loll out contentedly.

“You should name him,” Jane says suddenly. It’s not right that he doesn’t have a name to which he could be commended by.

Mrs. Hudson thinks for a moment. “I’ve always been rather fond of the name Benedict,” she muses, and ruffles his copper ears.

Jane suppresses a smirk. It’s kind of a mouthful for a dog, but as she looks even closer, it somehow fits. “It’s a noble name; a name for a hero. I’ll pick up some dog food tomorrow for him.”

*

Sherlock prided himself on being the most observant man in London.

So how he failed to notice a large, hairy, _ginger_ dog sitting on the sofa ( _his_ sofa!) for a full minute upon entering the flat was a grievous folly. 

He stops dead in the hall on the way to his room when it finally registers. He slowly walks back out into the sitting room, and stares at the creature.

The dog ( _sotar rua_ lit. ‘Red Setter’ resembling an earlier, setting spaniel according to _De Cannibus Britannicus_ ) was regarding him with an equally cool look and with every inclination that it belonged exactly where it was.

Which it most certainly did not.

“Jane!” he shouts up the stairs, still keeping his eye on the dog. It lifts its head. “Jane!” he bellows again, this time turning his back.

The dog didn’t like that one bit apparently, because it was up in a flash and barking at Sherlock. He (for Sherlock could now tell it was a he) was a lot bigger than Sherlock had originally thought, and so if he let out a… _noise_ …of alarm it was because he hadn’t quantified the ratio of a no doubt five-stone mass of hunting dog to his unprepared eleven-stone self. His back hits the wall as the snarling beast steps closer, canines glistening.

“Ben! Ben that’s enough!” Jane shouts flying down the stairs. The dog, _Ben_ (honestly?), stops barking immediately at her scolding tone. She puts her hands on her hips and glares down at him. “That’s _very_ rude of you.”

He lowers his russet ears, and in a blatant show of manipulation, rolls onto his back.

“Ben?” Sherlock says incredulously as Jane melts like butter and kneels down to scratch his belly.

“There’s my good Benny boy,” she says, and Ben’s tail thumps the hardwood enthusiastically.

“ _Benny boy?”_ he said. “That’s beyond saccharine even for you, Jane.”

Jane glares at him pointedly. “I don’t know why you screamed like a girl. I told you about Benedict three days ago. Mrs. Hudson just dropped him off.”

“I absolutely _did not_ scream,” Sherlock says. Jane gives him another look, and with as much dignity as he can muster, he peels himself away from the wall. “Benedict? What a ridiculous name.”

“Says the man named Sherlock.”

“Not the point,” he seethes. “The point is I think I would have remembered a conversation in which we were getting a new lodger. Seems pretty important.”

“Yes I agree. Important information. Unless you deleted it, which you are known to do on occasion.” Sherlock…ironically didn’t have a reply to that. Jane gets to her feet. “Are you hungry?”

“Actually I could do with —”

“Not you. I was talking to Ben,” Jane says with a huff of laughter. “If you want something, fix it yourself, you lazy git.” And with that she beckons Ben into the kitchen, chattering to him while she pours some dry food into a ceramic bowl.

Sherlock just stares at them, abashed. As if sensing this, Ben lifts his head for a moment, and Sherlock swears the hairy menace actually _smirks_ at him.

The dog had to go. 

*

Jane sits curled up on the sofa with Ben’s head in her lap as she reads her book.

Or tries to read, that is. She keeps getting interrupted every other paragraph it seems like, by Sherlock and his irksome questions and bloody map.

“So you say you found him over on Park —” he traces the road with his finger. 

“Yes I’ve said,” Jane says putting her book down for the tenth time. Ben looks up at her and huffs indignantly. She can’t help but agree. “I thought you didn’t care about Ben?”

“I don’t,” Sherlock says with a glance. Ben grunts petulantly in his direction. _Well that makes two_ , Jane thinks as she tries not to smile.

Instead she says, “Then why are you devoting so much time to finding his owners?”

“Because. The sooner I know where he came from, the sooner I can throw him back,” he grumbles. “That used to be my sofa, by the way.”

“There’s room for you too,” Jane says.

“And risk getting hair all over my clothes? No thank you,” he scoffs. “I’m already paying a fortune in lint tape rollers. The industry will have me alone to thank for their impressive sales this quarter.”

“You’re always so dramatic,” she says rolling he eyes. Sherlock doesn’t deign to respond to this.

“You said he was hurt when you found him…six days ago?”

“Yes. Sprained his paw. But he’s all better, and I assume he appreciates your concern, don’t you, Benny?” she says and gives him a good hearty scratch between his ears. 

His fur was softer now that Jane had given him a bath the other day, much to Sherlock’s dismay. She accidentally left his door open, so the second Ben left the bathroom, he bolted into Sherlock’s room and began rubbing his damp self all over the pillows and eiderown trying to dry off. 

Jane thought it was hilarious when Sherlock tried to chase Ben out of the room, and the dog only took it as more of a sign to continue to roll and play all over Sherlock’s bed. Jane was absolutely useless in helping, too subdued with side-splitting laughter. She apologised after, of course, and offered to have the duvet dry-cleaned. The next day she came downstairs to a sitting room full of FOUND DOG flyers with Ben’s face plastered to the front, and shockingly, Sherlock's phone number on of each and every one. Although, what was perhaps even more shocking was the fact that he put the flyers up himself.

After two solid days of not one single enquiry, Sherlock had then treated Ben as if he were a case, and began trying to retrace the dog’s path single-handedly. There was a spread sheet of possible routes taken by a dog with a sprained paw, a timetable, and various maps of London with different lines and circles drawn onto them. All the while Jane just sat back and watched him, thoroughly amused. At least he wasn’t bored.

“I think he managed to walk a lot farther than I had initially thought,” Sherlock finally says and grabs another stack of newly minted flyers. “I’m going to increase my radius from five miles, to ten.”

“Oh well that’s good,” Jane says, and watches as Sherlock spins around, coat unbuttoned and flapping around like a cape. He dons his navy scarf, and sets off down the hall to his room. After a moment she hears a bumping and banging, and possibly a muttered curse here and there, and Jane was just about to ask him what the bloody hell he was up to, when a frustrated growl sounds from in the kitchen. Jane leans forward on the sofa and catches a glimpse of Sherlock crawling inelegantly under the table. “What are you doing?” she says and makes her way to lean against the door frame, Ben at her heels.

“That mangy _rapscallion_ of a flea warehouse keeps. stealing. my. left. SHOE!” he snarls, snatching said shoe and banging his head on the table as he tries to extract himself.

“Just the left one?” Jane says with a guffaw.

“Always the bloody left one!” he says rubbing his head. He points a finger at Ben. “I _will_ make a coat out of you.”

In typical Ben fashion, he rolls over onto his back playfully. Oh he was a cheeky bugger, Jane would give him that. “Shame on you,” she ties to admonish through her chuckling. She crouches down anyway and gives him a belly rub.

“Traitor,” Sherlock says to her, and manages to put on his remaining shoe while glaring at her all the while. Then, with a flourish of curls and coat, he was out the door.

*

Sherlock sits across from Jane in his armchair observing her for a while before he says:

“Mycroft.”

“You better be careful, I might make a swear jar,” Jane says wryly without looking up at him from her idle paper-reading. Sherlock watches as her hand plays with Ben’s ears. The dog practically _oozes_ smugness, and it positively grates on him.

He grits his teeth. “No I meant that Mycroft would be able to get rid of him.”

Jane looks up at this startled. “Jesus, Sherlock. He’s just a dog not a criminal.” (That, of course, was pending be he doesn’t say.)

“Not like… _that,”_ Sherlock says rolling his eyes. He suppresses the urge to groan at the offended expressions from both Jane and Ben. (A fortnight ago he wouldn’t have thought it possible for a dog to look so insulted, but Ben managed it completely.) “What I _meant_ was that Mycroft could give him a home, given the fact that it seems that his owners either left the country or simply don’t want him anymore, seeing as how I’ve all but papered London at this point.”

“Oh,” Jane says settling back into a more relaxed state. “Why would he ever trouble himself with such a thing?”

“He has a fondness for animals,” Sherlock replies.

“I’m sorry, what?” Jane blurts, a grin stretching across her face. “Did you say your brother has a _fondness_ for something other than Mrs. Hudson’s Bakewell Tart?” 

At this Sherlock actually snorts. “Alas, he does. I remember him practically begging Mummy for a pet rabbit one Christmas.”

“A rabbit. Really?” Jane says thoughtfully. “What did he name it?”

“Oh something awful. Gladstone, I think. I’m surprised I haven’t deleted it. It actually might be worse a worse name than Benedict,” he says. The dog actually growl-whines his disapproval at this, and Sherlock narrows a glare at him.

Jane chuckles and picks up the paper again. Sherlock turns his mind to other things, and is about to go observe the pollen he collected off the cuffs of Jane’s trousers when she suddenly lowers the paper.

“Hang on. Are you actually suggesting what I think you are?” she says.

“I wouldn't know. Despite what everyone seems to fear, I cannot actually read minds,” he drawls.

“You want to give your brother a dog,” she states.

“Yes. It would be mutually beneficial for all parties. Benedict would be well looked after, and it wouldn’t put Mycroft out seeing as how he has no other obligation aside from running the Free World.”

“You want to give your brother a dog because he’s... _lonely?”_ Jane says even more incredulous.

“That’s not what I —” he tries to say, but Jane is apparently on to something and she steam rolls over him.

“Yes it is. I know a little bit about how that great brain of yours works. You identify with Ben in the sense that you need looking after — don’t give me that look, I know you’ve been jealous since he got here — and for the longest time it was Mycroft, your _big brother_ ,” (Sherlock tries to tamp down his disgust at this particular phrasing) “whom would always take care of you. So logically, Mr. Science Man being all full of logic-y things, you come to a solution.”

“Yes as I’ve said it’s mutually beneficial. It’s hardly a solution driven out of _sentiment_ , Jane,” he counters.

“Then why not give him to a shelter?” she challenges.

“Because…”

“Because you didn’t even think of it, am I right?” she says, her eyes sharp and knowing.

“Yes I did,” he lies. (The truth is he didn’t consider that option at all.) “I just knew how you would feel about the matter. You seem quite attached, so I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Sure. Blame it on me all you want,” Jane says and gets up to make tea. “But I know the truth.”

“And what would that be?” Sherlock says making eye-contact with Ben. The dog cocks its head to the side as it stares back.

“Sherlock Holmes has a heart,” she says triumphantly.

“Oh please,” he scoffs and pulls out his mobile. He opens a new text message field, and wonders if this is how everybody else feels when he deduces them. (Not like he would ever admit this out loud, of course.) He snaps his phone shut and stands up, intending to continue with his pollen experiment. 

Ben stands up too, and walks over to sit at his feet, his tail lightly wagging. He holds up a paw as if in acknowledgment, and it’s Sherlock’s turn to cock his head.

“I’m assuming you know the lengths I went through, including tarnishing my dignity, so you wouldn’t end up back on the streets?” he asks the setter. Ben grunts in affirmation, and lowers his paw. “I’m glad we’ve come to an understanding,” Sherlock says.

Making sure Jane’s back is turned, Sherlock bends down and scratches him behind one floppy ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ginger dog named Benedict? I think yes. Haha so he wasn't a puppy, but I hope you liked it anyways, and just because of this chapter I am incorporating Mycroft and Ben into the actual story line.


	18. Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunday dinner with Greg...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. This chapter is a pretty quiet chapter. Given where I'm at in 'Blindness and Bad Luck,' I am slowly trying to transition them out of the simply 'friends' stage, so this focusses on their shifting dynamic more than the domestic fluffiness that you are all probably used to. I hope you like it, as I was a little unsure about it at first.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [Precipice](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1956248) in part three of this series.

“ _What_ are you wearing?” Sherlock says from behind her making her jump and slosh some water over her hand as she was filling the kettle.

“What?” she says looking down at herself in confusion before flipping on the hob. She was going to have to remind (badger, bully, nag, etc.) him that he still needed to replace their electric one after he used it to boil some no doubt poisonous form of mushroom. The dented metal one Mrs. Hudson loaned them takes longer to boil, and she debates whether or not tea is worth it at the moment. She proceeds anyway, because tea is always worth it in the end.

“ _This,”_ Sherlock says plucking at her sleeve for emphasis.

“It’s a blouse,” she says facing him with her chin raised. He has the audacity to look insulted.

“Yes, but what’s it doing on _you?”_ he says bluntly. She glares at him and folds her arms over her chest before looking down at herself again in a spectacular attack of insecurity. Her ensemble consisted of a white short-sleeved cottony blouse with tasteful ruffles around the sweetheart neck line and a pair of casual dress slacks. It wasn’t too flashy, but comfortable and practical to boot, and she figured at the time it suited her…or so she thought. Sherlock seems to pick up on her uncertainty, and he rolls his eyes. “Oh don’t be like that, you know what I meant.”

“I know I don’t really look it, but I have been known to wear more feminine clothing on occasion,” Jane grumbles, and turns away from him, busying herself with the mugs. By all means he doesn’t deserve tea after being so rude, but she sets about making him a cup anyway. She dabs her little finger with her tongue and dips it into the small pot of caster sugar before licking it off, and spoons some into Sherlock’s mug. 

He watches her do this, a curious tilt to his head, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement even though his mouth remains stoical.

“It’s not just that you’ve deviated from your normally pragmatic attire for something more fashionable, it’s the fact that you’ve gone out of your way to purchase these items new specifically to be worn on this day. So today is special for some reason. Not a date, no. I’d know if that Sherman character were coming by —”

“His name’s Stephen —”

“— so it has to be something else. It’s obligatory, which is why you’re nervous, but it’s something you care about and want to impress more than usual.” He leans in and scrutinises her face. “And are you wearing _mascara?”_ he adds incredulously.

Jane huffs and pushes him out of her personal space.

“Only a little bit,” she says, her cheeks heating. “And you wouldn’t have to bother yourself with deducing everything if you hadn’t deleted the fact that I told you, _yesterday,_ I was going over to Greg’s for dinner.” She shoves a mug of tea in his hands.

“Oh. Dull,” Sherlock says and leans back against the counter blowing the steam from the brim of his cup. She rolls her eyes and sips her own.

“So does this mean you won’t be coming with?” she asks.

“What?” he says, frowning.

“Stop bloody deleting our conversations, you great pillock. I invited you and you said you’d think about it.” She looks at him expectantly as he continues to frown off into the distance, the skin bunching at the top of his nose like it does when he’s confused. “Well?”

“I’m thinking,” comes the reply. Jane shakes her head in exasperation. Before she turns towards the sink to empty the remaining tea in her mug, he speaks up again. “Why do you want me to come with you?”

It sounded like a simple question, but it gave her pause. With Sherlock Holmes, nothing was ever simple. She regards him for a moment. “You said it yourself. I’m a bit nervous. The last time I attempted a normal family gathering, it ended horribly. I could use the company, and naturally who better than my best friend?” she smiles ruefully.

Instead of clearing things up, her explanation seemed to have the opposite effect as Sherlock’s frown of confusion turned into a full blown scowl. He looks away from her and over her shoulder, his eyes flicking back and forth rapidly as if searching for an answer written on the wall behind her. He opens his mouth once, twice, three times to say something, before giving up. He sidesteps her without a word and makes his way to his bedroom.

_So that would be a ‘no’, then._

Jane stands in the kitchen, oddly bereft. She wasn’t expecting Sherlock to want to go in the first place, but for some reason their exchange made his rejection sting a little more than it should. 

Before she can ponder the strange twisty feeling in her gut any longer, however, Sherlock suddenly glides back in with his coat and his scarf. 

“Shall we?” he says, his voice rumbling. She can’t help but grin in relief as she makes her way to get her own jacket.

“I will warn you, Greg’s specialty is beer-can chicken. If you get him started on the topic, he won’t shut up about the mechanics of his technique,” she says as they head down the stairs.

 _“Scintillating,”_ Sherlock drawls, and hails a cab for them.

*

It was odd seeing Lestrade out of the confines of New Scotland Yard. (A bit unnerving, if Sherlock was being honest.) It was one thing to deduce that the Detective Inspector was previously married, has two children, and a proclivity for football and outdoor grilling, but to actually observe this carbon copy of domesticity was something else. He eyes Lestrade’s ‘Grill-Meister’ apron with distaste, and watches as his children (one girl – Amanda, age seven; one boy – Zachary, age five) chase each other around the small yard. He looks down at his beer with a scowl.

“Isn’t it a bit early for a cook out?” Sherlock says disdainfully as the late March air ruffles his curls.

Lestrade sips his own beer thoughtfully. “Maybe…” he concedes with a crooked grin. “But I’ve been wanting to test this baby out ever since Kathleen got it for me for Christmas.” He pats the grill fondly.

Ah yes. _Kathleen._ The new girlfriend Lestrade acquired. He narrows his gaze as he watches said girlfriend prepare the rest of dinner through the wide kitchen window, Jane at her side peeling potatoes.

Sherlock wonders how Lestrade cannot know that Kathleen is cheating on him with the P.E. teacher at the school she works at. It’s blatantly obvious. The grill is a testament to her infidelity. It’s expensive, flashy. A gift that should be given as a testament to their commitment to one another. Seeing as how they’ve only been together for a little over nine months, it speaks on behalf of another testament: guilt. (Or manipulation. Or both.) The instant they walked through the door, Sherlock had deduced it. He was half way to saying as much before he remembered Jane was standing right next to him. So he clamped his mouth shut for once, and endured the inane pleasantries for her sake.

He observes Jane through the window some more. Her hair is down giving her a soft look – or perhaps it is because she is so at ease that makes her look that way? – making her usually brazen eyes flicker like soft candle light. She laughs at something Kathleen says, and even though Sherlock can’t hear it, he can picture its cadence perfectly, the way it hushes out of her mouth at the very beginning before it dissolves into a bubbly trill reminiscent of wind chimes. 

Jane’s laugh is a gift, he realises.

It is for this reason that he keeps his deductions at bay. He’s well to admit that he’s usually out of his depth with such things, but he’s learning. And he’ll be damned if he knowingly lets himself be the reason to take her laughter away.

*

The cab ride back to the flat is a quiet one, and Jane’s gaze slides to her pensive flatmate.

She had a wonderful time at her uncle’s house, and she was immensely grateful that Sherlock came along, although she did worry at the beginning he would be his usual caustic and insufferable self. Much to her shock, however, he was quiet even though she could see that great brain of his working rapid-fire, and dare she say it, he was even rather _polite._ It had done much to set her mind at ease, but now that they were headed home, she began to worry. It was unusual.

“Hey,” she says placing her hand on his knee to get his attention. “All right?”

He regards her with a sudden furious intensity that takes her breath away.

“You’re uncle’s girlfriend is having an affair with a colleague,” Sherlock blurts as if he had been holding back all night. Which in all fairness, he probably was.

 _“What?”_ she breathes, incredulous.

“She’s also been stealing petty cash from the shop her father owns, and most likely uses most of it to spend on diet pills and valium instead of paying Lestrade what is due to him monthly for bills and the rent on the house they share. He’s blind to the matter, and what’s more is he’s thinking of proposing to her next month if the little velvet box sitting in his desk at work is anything to go by.” She inhales sharply, and Sherlock face twists in a grimace of disdain before he turns to look back out the window.

Anger roils up within her once the shock has worn off. “Feel better? Now that it’s off your chest?” she asks.

“No I do not feel better!” he snaps turning his fierce glare on her once more. His pupils are constricted, and he worries his scarf between his fingers as if he’s trying to tear it apart. “The deductions… _knowing_ all of that just swirling around in my head for hours and hours while you all played ‘happy families’ completely blind to everything that’s so obviously in front of you! And you! You just kept going on about how _happy_ you were for him. And then I’m left with —”

“It’s always about you isn’t it?” Jane says her hot fury washing over her and breaking into a cold bitterness. “That’s what it comes down to? Sorry my life is so boring, but god forbid you keep your deductions to your self for more than twenty minutes.”

“I can picture it, Jane! Don’t you see?” Sherlock says nearly shouting at this point. “I can picture your face when it happens, you with your insufferable bleeding heart, and the way your eyes look when another thing in your life has disillusioned you; when disappointment leaves another notch in your wall. And there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it from happening because people are idiots, and they all run about blind knocking into each other causing damage. Do you understand, Jane? Do you?”

Jane clenches her jaw and finally looks directly at him. The conversation had taken a turn, and she’s not entirely sure what they are talking about anymore. She presses her fingers into her forehead. “Speak plainly for once, Sherlock. What are you getting at?”

“I couldn’t tell you!” he says lowering his voice to a deadly growl.

“You just did!” she points out, and he stares straight ahead.

“I couldn’t tell you, and then I couldn’t _not_ tell you at the same time,” Sherlock says, and gritting his teeth, closes his eyes briefly. He looks at her trying to get her to understand, the words lost on him.

“Why couldn’t you?” she asks, bereft. He mumbles something under his breath looking back out his window. “What was that?”

“You said we were best friends,” Sherlock says a little louder, sparing her a glance in the reflection of the glass.

And suddenly, Jane gets it.

“Oh,” she says.

“Mm.”

She sits there, the realisation washing over her. Without saying anything, she reaches over and takes his hand in hers.

 _Thank you,_ she squeezes. It takes a moment, but Sherlock eventually squeezes back, and they watch London pass them by in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw, over 4000 hits?? You guys are amazing, and I love each and every one of your comments.


	19. Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane knows what's in there. Of course she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a bit on this one. I've been trying my hardest to finish up 'Blindness'. This particular chapter I held off on because if you are reading this companion piece in order based on the corresponding chapters in the main arc, it alludes to the next chapter in 'Blindness' well. Foreshadowing and all that jazz. I hope you like it. It's admittedly not as fluffy, but I didn't want to be too obvious in the main arc. Anyways!
> 
> Set directly after Sherlock leaves the flat in the chapter [Pretence](http://archiveofourown.org/works/923971/chapters/1981612).

Jane is left standing in the sitting room with three mugs of tea in her hands as Sherlock’s coat tails whip around the landing, and he clatters the rest of the way down the stairs. The street door slams, and she frowns, feeling at a loss. It wasn’t unusual for Sherlock to hare off on his own, but there was something in his pinched expression just before he left. She wanted to write it off as exhaustion and irritation, but there was something else that niggled at her.

“Well,” Stephen says coming over to fetch one of the mugs. “Isn’t he a pleasant chap?”

“Rude as ever. I did warn you,” Jane says lightly and pours out Sherlock’s tea with a sigh. She comes back and takes a seat on the sofa, beckoning Stephen to sit with her. “Thanks for walking me home. You didn’t have to.”

“Nonsense. I wanted to,” he says. He looks at her from over his glasses as he takes a sip. “How did you end up flatsharing with him, anyway? You’re both like oil and water.”

Jane chuckles as she thinks back to the first time she met Sherlock. It probably wouldn’t be on to mention that she killed a man for him in the first forty-eight hours of having known him. Definitely bit-not-good. 

“It was a mutual acquaintance of ours,” she settles on. “Mike Stamford works at St. Bart’s as a teacher, and he apparently had a conversation with Sherlock that day and Sherlock remarked that he was hard person to find a flatmate for. That afternoon I ran into Mike at the park, and I mentioned I needed new lodgings as well. He took me to meet him, and well, the rest is history.” She takes a sip of her own tea thinking back to that day, and how a million things could have gone differently and if they had she would have never met Sherlock. She smiles to herself.

“What are you thinking about?” Stephen asks softly.

“Destiny,” she says without really thinking.

“Ah. There seems to be a lot of that between us,” Stephen says mistaking her meaning. She blinks for a second before she realises what she said.

“Yes. I suppose there is,” Jane says a blush colouring her cheeks.

“Listen,” Stephen says setting his mug on the coffee table. “I was wondering…if you don’t have plans tonight, would you like to accompany me to a night out?”

Jane tilts her head, and gives a baffled smile. He sits on the edge of the sofa all hopeful boyishness, his hands clasped in his lap. His dark fringe hangs down, framing the top of his glasses making him look years younger, and absolutely charming. She didn’t realise she had been staring for quite so long until Stephen starts to ramble, suddenly unsure.

“Of course if you’re not feeling up to it I completely understand and I —”

“Stephen, I’d love to,” she says putting him at ease. Her grin only grows wider.

“Oh. Really?” he asks as if he can’t believe it.

“Yes,” she says, and can’t help but brush some of the hair out of his eyes.

“Well. In that case…how about I pick you up around seven-thirty tonight?” he says.

“Sounds like a plan,” she says and stands to show him the door. He grins, all charming and handsome-like, and skips down the stairs. Jane shakes her head, smiling to herself. She turns around and enters the flat again, her hands on her hips.

She was alone. Which, admittedly, wasn’t a new thing, but somehow she felt the emptiness more so than usual. She pulls her mobile out from her pocket and fires off a quick text.

_Sent – 4:42 PM_  
 _I didn’t mean to chase you out of the flat. stephen’s gone, so you can come back now._

Sherlock doesn’t answer, and Jane bites her lip.

_Sent – 4:48 PM_  
 _we can work on the books some more if you want? whatever the case, I’m here._

She hits send and tucks her phone away knowing that she probably won’t get a reply. Jane knows she’s probably worrying for nothing, but she can’t shake the way he looked at her just before he left. It was a worn look; a distressed and irritated look. One that was most common when he was pushing himself much too hard. He had knocked himself off-kilter somehow, and she could tell he was wobbling.

Jane looks around the living room for a moment before her eyes come to rest on Sherlock’s leather violin case.

She knows what’s in there. Of course she does. She’s been around enough addicts to know all the tricks, and it didn’t take her long to deduce where Sherlock kept his emergency stash. However, he used it more as a security blanket than anything, she noticed. He liked having it around as if to prove that it was still his choice to not take the cocaine as opposed to it having the decision thrust upon him like it was in the past. It was a precarious situation he was subjecting himself to, much like playing with fire, but as time went on she saw that this system seemed to work for Sherlock. So she didn’t say anything or let on to the fact that she knew. Sherlock needed some modicum of control of the situation after all. That’s what it really boiled down to.

However, once an addict, always an addict. She had read it enough times in the pamphlets on alcoholism she took home whenever her sister entered into another rehab. There were signs to look out for that spelled danger, and she was surprising adept at spotting them. Sherlock was stretched too thin by this case, she could tell, and after today she could see the iron will of his reserve eroding under the pressure. It was as close as she’s ever seen him reach the edge, and because of this she crosses to the desk where the case is sat upon without a second thought.

Her finger tips brush the gold latches, but at the last moment she hesitates.

If she does this, isn’t she no better than Mycroft? She doesn’t know much about their sordid relationship, but she knows there is a lot of resentment between them caused by Sherlock’s past drug use. As much is true when it comes to her and Harry, honestly. She just did the opposite of Mycroft and ran away and joined the Army instead. It did little to improve her relationship with her sister either way. 

So that was the question. Which was better? Action or inaction? Force or ignorance?

She didn’t know.

The only thing she did know was that it was clear the Work wouldn’t always be enough for him. She only hoped he found something that would before he fell to ruin at his own hands, because she didn’t know if she could watch one of the most brilliant people she’s ever known tear himself apart.

She backs away from the case and sinks into her armchair.


	20. Yellow Spray Paint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane figures it's about time she earned that bloody ASBO.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! This marks the first round of Afters for the newest installment ['Pursuit of a Greater Thrill'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801) and I hope you like it. It's a bit long because I wanted to tie off some loose ends from 'Blindness' and figured this would do nicely. Thank you all so much for reading, and I am excited to be writing this. I am a bit behind on NaNoWriMo due to reasons, but I am trying to throw these up here as fast as I can! Your comments definitely keep me chuggin along, that's for sure. Anyways! Expect more soon! xxHoney

Jane sits across their desk-cum-breakfast table munching on some bacon as she watches her pensive flatmate.

Sherlock flips angrily through the pages of the paper, the front page featuring the picture of an antique looking hairpin with the headline: WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLION-HAIR? Sighing heavily, he folds it into thirds and slaps it down on the desk next to his untouched plate of soldiers and eggs.

“You mind, don’t you?” she says after a while.

“Hm?” he says, snapping out of his reverie. 

“That she got away. It isn’t enough that we got Shan’s two henchmen, it bothers you that she escaped.”

“Oh…it’s of no consequence,” he replies wearily, stabbing a soldier and cramming it perfunctorily into his mouth. “It must be a vast network. We barely scratched the surface.”

“Yeah but you cracked the code!” Jane says, and Sherlock smiles his proud half-smile for a moment before it falls off his face just a quickly.

“No I cracked _this_ code. All the smugglers have to do is pick up another book. Hopefully, I’ve at least managed to drive them out of London. They still have all of Europe at their fingers for all we know.” He spears some scrambled egg with his fork viciously, not really intent on anything more than mutilating the rest of his breakfast at this point.

Jane sighs, and pushes her own plate aside. She contemplates the man in front of her for a moment. He is wearing that ruddy dressing gown over his dress shirt, and one side has slipped off his shoulder. She smiles slightly, a warm fondness welling up within her, and she leans over the table and fixes it, her fingers brushing against the side of his neck before she smoothes the placket down over his chest a bit. Her hand lingers there over his heart for a moment, lost in that steady beat as she remembers how he felt pressed against her the other night.

The other night…

When Sherlock kissed her. Nothing but a memory now, tucked into a small box and kept close to her heart, there for her to look but never to touch again.

She begins to pull away, when Sherlock’s hand suddenly catches hers and she gasps, eyes snapping to his face. His own eyes are closed and he presses her hand to him even harder, fingers curling under hers, cool against her warm skin. He looks at her finally, a fierceness in his gaze, a devastated longing that reflects her own, before breaking the connection and slowly placing her hand on the table between them. He doesn’t let go, and instead stares at their hands for the longest time until Jane turns her wrist so she can link them together properly.

She stands tugging him likewise to his feet.

“Come on. I have to go do something, and I’ll not have you sulking about the flat all day. Get your coat.”

*

Sherlock hates hospitals. The bright fluorescent lights, the strong smell of antiseptic, the _sickness_ and _injury_ all around him. Some areas were worse, of course. A &E was particularly bad, the tension and stress and chaos coalescing in one place, not to mention the bitterness/agitation/worry/fear/pain on everyone’s faces. (And that was just in the waiting room.) 

He wouldn’t go to any floor that wasn't the morgue that the air of death lingered as well. At St. Bart’s, the fifth floor was designated for those of the terminally ill, and Sherlock avoided it at all costs if he could. He couldn’t take the hopelessness.

Luckily, where they were going was the Recovery Centre, which by far was the best wing in the hospital according to Sherlock. It was lighter, hardly any vestiges of dread or sorrow permeated the corridors, which made it that much easier to breathe.

He follows Jane up to the desk, and finds that the anxiety he usually feels at being in hospital is actually at a tolerable level, so he keeps his deductions about the nurse (actually 45 even though repeated attempts at looking like she’s only in her twenties through botox injections and liposuction are present) to himself.

“Soo Lin Yao, please?” Jane asks setting the ceramic mug of blue and yellow paper flowers on the counter. 

It was her idea that they get her flowers of some sort, as was customary of visiting people in hospitals, and Sherlock absently said she use the origami lotuses they had fashioned together on the mantle. He didn’t know why he suggested such a thing until Jane beamed at him and called him _brilliant,_ and Sherlock was torn between that warm glow of pride he usually felt under her praise, and berating his subconscious for sabotaging the distance he was meant to be implementing between them.

“Room three-eleven,” Botox Nurse says, and vaguely gestures down the corridor. 

“ _Botox Nurse?”_ Jane hisses, barely suppressing a laugh as they make their way to Soo Lin’s room.

“Did I say that out loud?”

“Yeah. I’m surprised you waited until she was out of earshot, though. You’re being quite docile today,” she says.

“I don’t like hospitals,” Sherlock says as by means of an answer. Jane nods, but doesn’t say anything more as she shoulders open the door.

Soo Lin was propped up against the pillows looking pale, but alive and in remarkably good spirits for someone who was recently in a brief coma.

“Mr. Holmes! Doctor Watson!” she says beaming at them, and Sherlock is startled by a bloom of proud affection when Jane immediately envelops Soo Lin in an earnest, but gentle hug. (This woman is alive because of Jane. His Jane.)

“I think you can call me Jane at this point,” she says pulling away and setting the mug of paper flowers on the side table along with cards and other ‘get well’ paraphernalia. “We brought you, well, flowers I suppose.”

“They’re beautiful. Thank you,” Soo Lin says and looks at Sherlock with tears in her eyes. Sherlock suddenly doesn’t know what to do with himself, and settles for clearing his throat and nodding sharply.

“It is us who should be thanking you,” he says stiffly. “Without the information you gave us the Black Lotus would still be terrorising London. I assume they’ll be offering you a key to the city soon,” he says, trying for levity, but he feels oddly wrong-footed. He looks at Jane for affirmation, and feels slightly less-so when she smiles softly at him.

Soo Lin tips her head back against the pillows and closes her eyes, a few tears escaping through her lashes. “It’s all over now?”

“Yes,” he says.

“And Zhi Zhu —?”

“Gone,” he says. She squeezes her eyes shut even tighter, and Jane grasps her hand in a comforting gesture, one that Sherlock knows well. (Doctor. Healer. He can almost feel his own fingers tingle with her warmth and compassion she freely bestows. It is a wonder, one he will never fully puzzle out.)

“You never have to worry about him again,” Jane says. “You’re safe.”

Soo Lin opens her eyes, exhaling shakily through her mouth. “I cannot express my gratitude to you both. You saved my life and gave me back my freedom.”

Jane blinks hard, her throat working against a lump in her throat. “Just, er, just do us a favour and be kind to yourself. You don’t have to hide anymore, so make the most of it.”

At that moment, the door practically bangs open with the entrance of a man with his arms full of two different bouquets of flowers and a large stuffed bear.

“Sorry! I couldn’t get the door open!”

“Andy?” Soo Lin says.

“Speaking of which,” Jane mumbles under her breath and gets to her feet. “Let me help you with those.”

“Ta,” he says and hands Jane the flowers. “I didn’t know if you liked a more classic arrangement or more of the wildflower type so I got you both. I hope that’s okay?”

“No it’s fine, Andy,” Soo Lin says with wide brown eyes.

“Good. Good,” he says and shifts a little on his feet, still clutching the bear in his hands. They look at each other silently, an entire conversation seemingly unfolding between them. “How are you feeling?” he says softly.

“I’m okay,” Soo Lin replies. Another beat of silence.

“Well,” Jane says making her way over to stand by Sherlock. “We are glad you are all right, and we really need to be going, give you two a chance to…catch up. Right Sherlock?”

“Hmm? Yes. Good,” Sherlock says tearing his gaze away from Andy’s face. The boy was obviously in love with Soo Lin if the stuffed bear with the cartoon heart attached to its front was anything to go by. But it wasn’t this deduction that had caught Sherlock completely off-guard, no. It was the salient fact that for once, he _understood._

Dealing with the loved ones of victims was usually tedious because it meant parsing his way to the facts through layers of fear and concern and confusion Sherlock honestly didn’t see the point of. His motto had always been that caring wasn’t an advantage, and he firmly believed people would see that if they were able to divorce themselves from feelings like he did. 

But now, looking into Andy’s face he saw all of those things (longing, fear, anger, and overwhelming blessed bloodythankgod _relief_ ) and the only thought running through is mind was _‘My God. I know what that feels like.’_

(This must be what empathy is, and he isn't sure how he feels about that.)

He was grateful, to say the least, when Jane made their excuses and tandem ‘well wishing’ for the both of them, and followed her out of the hospital.

“Do you mind hailing us a cab? I’m rubbish at it,” Jane says.

“Actually…do you mind if we walk a bit?” he says. Sherlock wanted the fresh air at the moment, and the thought of cramming themselves into a taxi was rather unappealing.

“Sure,” she says, and they set off at an easy pace side-by-side.

Sherlock took them through some of the lesser known side streets in order to prolong their walk. His mind felt addled, so unlike how he usually felt after a case, and it left him feeling restless yet contemplative. Every time he thought of General Shan or the pictures he found of them that night at the circus, his gut twisted unpleasantly. The interest the Black Lotus had taken in them was incongruous to their smuggling operation, and he couldn’t help but feel like there were other forces in play.

A tantalising thought kept circling the edges of his mind, and he couldn’t help but think this had something to do with the elusive Moriarty. 

However, if his consulting criminal theory was correct, Moriarty’s reach was far greater than petty cab drivers with a vengeance. No, the Tong was an ancient crime syndicate, and if Moriarty was the man in the centre of the web, then Sherlock greatly underestimated the magnitude of his ‘fan.’

It was terrifying and scintillating all at once.

“Stop that,” Jane says.

“What?”

“Brooding.”

“I don’t brood,” he scoffs.

“Yeah you do. You’re a master at the epic sulk. You could win gold if it were an Olympic Sport.”

“I’m not sulking, I’m thinking,” he replies with a scowl.

“About what?”

“Moriarty,” he says, and Jane stops in her tracks. He turns to face her and catches a glimpse of her worry as it flickers across her face.

“No. That won’t do. Not today,” she says definitively, and before Sherlock has a chance to question her, she marches forward and ducks into a small shop on the street corner. A moment later she appears again with something in a plastic carrier bag, and with a tick of her fingers she motions (no, _orders_ ) him to follow her with a demanding, “Come along, Holmes.”

Curiosity piqued, Sherlock goes without hesitating, and follows Jane down a deserted alley behind a Mediterranean fusion restaurant smelling of chickpeas and sour dolmas. She looks around to make sure they are alone before revealing a can of spray paint from the plastic bag.

Michigan Yellow.

“What are you doing?” he asks honestly perplexed because surely, Jane of all people wouldn’t —

She pops off the plastic cap and shakes the can vigourously, the _clack-clack_ of the pea inside echoing off the brick walls. She draws an obscene yellow circle, two dots, and a mouth to represent a smiley face and steps back to admire her handy work.

“There.”

Sherlock looks between it and her in stunned silence, a grin slowly breaking out on his face. “Jane Watson. Did you just deface public property?”

“I did. Yes. I figured I better properly earn that ASBO I got.”

“You could get another one, and this time it would most definitely be your fault,” he says touching the tip of his finger to the already dripping edge of the crooked smile.

“Ha, only if I get caught. Besides it would be worth it,” she shrugs.

“In what way?”

“It made you smile,” she replies simply, and he looks at her just then, surprised.

She looks back, her eyes soft, and her smile fond but before he can think of anything more to say she tosses the can of paint at him which he catches deftly.

“Now you.”

He smirks down at the paint in his hand and shakes it once more for good measure before writing

_MH_  
+  
CAKE  
=  
4EVER 

which has Jane in hysterics encouraging him to get completely carried away by drawing a large soppy heart around the declaration just to hear her laugh even more. She snatches it back and writes:

_FOR A GOOD TIME CALL 020 7946 0558_

“Is that…Anderson’s phone number?” Sherlock asks. She answers him with a morally dubious gleam in her eye and hands the paint can back. “You are truly diabolical. I’m impressed,” he says and lines up the nozzle.

_WILKES IS A TWAT_

“Oh god. I almost forgot about that guy. A twat, huh?” she chuckles.

“Well…I figured ‘closeted homosexual with a Napoleon complex’ was too long of a phrase. This gets the point across nicely. You seem rather fond of the colloquialism,” he says.

She shakes her head positively beaming at him. “Wait how much did he end up paying you anyway?”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty? As in…?”

“Thousand,” he says, and Jane sputters for a moment before recovering.

“Right.”

“Hungry?” he asks.

“You're paying,” she says and they make their way back to the street grinning at one another from ear to ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully Unnecessary Disclaimer: The number used for the purpose of this chapter is entirely fictitious. Please do not now or ever attempt to "call for a good time." (I mean...it's _Anderson_. *shudders*)


	21. Not That Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock, the sun, and GHB? (idon'teven--summaries are hard.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tee hee a little short one. I wanted to write a loopy Sherlock and this is what I came up with. Hope you guys like it!
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Bang'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801) in part five of the series.

Sherlock sits under the surprisingly accurate representation of a papier mache Saturn and frowns as the world tilts alarmingly on its axis.

“Hey? Sherlock?” Jane says, her warm hands framing his face and getting him to look at her. He tears his eyes from the gymnasium ceiling and tries to focus on her. (Double vision. Probably not good.)

“Hmm?” he responds, blinking through the haze.

“How are you feeling?”

“Where is Martinez?” he answers, looking around blearily.

Jane’s face darkens and she looks over her shoulder at the dark and very unconscious lump of one Albert Martinez, the serial rapist targeting young women at the Southwark Charter School. “He’s been taken care of.”

At that moment, Lestrade and his men come barging into the gym ready to secure the area and neutralise the threat. Which was rather a moot point now, and Sherlock can’t help but give Jane a crooked smile.

“ _Moot,”_ he says precisely, emphasisng the _t_ at the end of the word and decides he likes how it sounds, so he says it again. And again.

“Right,” Jane says, concern fretting her brow, and feels for the pulse in his neck. Her hands are soft, and he tips his head back to the ceiling again to give her better access. The replica of Saturn spins lightly on its wire, the off-kilter rings wobbling and making him dizzy. He lists to the side, and Jane steadies him, firmly anchoring him to solid ground. “Woah, I’ve got you.”

“Is he all right?” Lestrade asks jogging over to them, leaving Sergeant Donovan to handle the suspect.

“He was drugged. Some GHB cocktail,” she says and hands him the syringe for evidence. “Martinez wasn’t able to administer the full dose so there should be plenty in there to incriminate him. I think Sherlock will be okay, I just need to get him home.” 

“Did you need a ride?” Lestrade asks, and Sherlock’s head snaps up to him. He tries to maintain his dignity through another wave of vertigo.

“No! Not in a police car,” he says.

“All right, relax. I’ll be by tomorrow to get both of your statements, so you better rest up Sherlock,” he says and makes his way over to Martinez who is awake now and talking rapidly in Spanish. The clash of the unfamiliar language swirls in his head, his mind attempting to tear apart the well known phrases and stitch them back together with meaning. (He knows Spanish. He can speak it fluently, but right now nothing is making sense and it makes him nauseous.)

“Can you stand?” Jane asks him, and the cadence of her voice is like a balm to his battered eardrums.

“Give me a moment,” he says and bows his head. “M’hot, Jane,” he mumbles into his chest.

Gently, Jane cups his jaw and eases his head up again. He is able to make out the gold flecks in her irises just before she presses her lips to his forehead. She leaves her mouth there for a few moments, and draws back finally biting her lip. 

“You have a bit of a fever,” she says and checks the pulse in his wrist. “It’s not bad though, probably around 38.2.”

“How did you get that?” Sherlock asks peering into her face. The place where her lips touched his forehead tingles slightly making him feel warmer still.

“Old trick,” she smiles. “Whenever I didn’t have a thermometer, which was quite often, I would use my lips to gauge.”

“Oh yes, of course. Lips have a high concentration of receptor cells making them extremely sensitive to heat or cold,” he recites by rote.

“It’s good to see you’re not completely out of it,” Jane says and helps lever him to his feet. His knees nearly buckle, but her arm is around his waist holding him upright. “I’ve got you.”

“You said that already,” Sherlock says, gripping onto her shoulders and he tries to get his legs to cooperate.

“Sorry if I’m repeating myself. I know you hate it,” Jane grumbles and turns him to face her.

“No, no it’s…it’s not that, but you do, don’t you ?” he says holding on to her upper arms.

“I do what, Sherlock?” she asks softly. Her fingers come up and carefully inspect the bruise blooming on his jaw.

“You have me,” he says, and he can’t keep the sudden giddy grin off of his face. He feels light all over, from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.

She looks at him just then with a sad smile, something akin to longing dancing in her eyes before she expertly shutters it away. He swallows hard, his own smile fading.

“You do, don’t you?” he asks. “Because I have you. You’re mine, Jane, you know this right?”

“Sherlock — you’re not feeling well —”

“I feel _fine,”_ he says grasping her even tighter to prove his point. (Better than fine. She had to see that.) “I’m _clear,_ Jane. So clear.” He pulls her closer. She stiffens and looks around, but the officers at NSY aren’t paying attention. He ducks his head, his lips hovering close to hers.

“Sherlock…” she whispers, her eyes fluttering closed. “You don’t want to do this.”

“I do,” he insists. He breathes deep and the scent of her is enough to make him dizzy. In fact…

“Woah!” Jane says and grabs him around the waist again as he tips forward. Their foreheads bang together, and Sherlock can’t stop the somewhat hysterical bubble of laughter from leaving his throat. “You are ridiculous,” Jane says with mock exasperation.

“Yes, but you love me,” Sherlock says swaying on his feet. He tips his head to the ceiling again and scowls. “What’s that?” he asks indicating the large yellow ball at the centre of the Solar System replica that's been mocking him.

“Wha — what?” Jane says looking entirely ill-footed. He doesn’t understand why she’s suddenly distressed but before he can deduce she says, “…the sun? That’s the sun, Sherlock.”

“No it isn’t,” he says looking back at the model. “It's can't be. It’s in the wrong place.”

Jane looks at him, and finally breaks out into a little giggle. Sherlock doesn’t know what he said, but whatever it was he’s glad for it. It’s wrong if Jane’s upset. She should be happy always. He tells her as much.

“All right,” she says and helps him to the door. “It’s time we get you home, you great pillock.”


	22. Risotto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane...can't cook. But Sherlock can.
> 
> Or: In which Sherlock wears an apron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are! I really love this chapter. It makes me feel all gooey inside. I hope you all like it. There is like hella domestic fluff in this chapter. Just warning you. Get your insulin.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Bang'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801) in part five of this series.

Sherlock was laughing at her.

Not his usual snide chuckle. Oh no. He was full out gasping, clutching his sides, and holding himself up by the counter, _laughing._

It was such a boisterous laugh, so wild and free compared to his familiar self-contained rumble. It was higher in pitch too, and a bit wheezy. It was because of this delightful discovery that Jane was fighting her own giggling despite how irritated she was at him.

“It’s not _funny,_ Sherlock,” she says, dumping the curdled contents of the stock pot into the sink.

“You burnt the _soup,_ Jane! The _soup!”_

“Yes I know. I forgot to stir — will you cut it out!” Jane says flicking a towel at him.

“Soup is _wet._ Surely you see what’s wrong with this picture? You’ve managed to somehow circumvent the laws of matter.”

“Well I got a bit distracted by the honey in my hair,” she protests and begins scrubbing the black layer of crud stuck to the bottom of the pot. She wrinkles her nose. It was a cream based soup, and she only stepped away for a second, honestly —

“Honey? Why were you using honey for potato and leek soup?” he asks.

“Hm? Oh it wasn’t for the soup. I don’t know how it ended up in my hair, actually. On second thought, I’m not even sure it was honey,” she says bemusedly and this launches Sherlock off into another bout of hysterics. “It’s your bloody fault, you know,” she says jabbing the scrub brush at him for emphasis.

“How so?” Sherlock says, finally catching his breath, amusement crinkling the corners of his bright eyes making him look years younger and care-free.

“I warned you I couldn’t cook, but you insisted I come up with something since you bought _five sacks_ of potatoes and only needed to use one for that bloody experiment.”

“I thought given your frugal nature you wouldn’t want to waste perfectly good food,” Sherlock says.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s too late for that,” she says morosely looking at the mushy potatoes in the sink.

“Didn’t anyone teach you how to cook? You know, your mother perhaps?”

Jane looks at him startled for a moment. Her mother was definitely not the type to bond with her over cooking. Half the time they couldn't even be in the same room with one another without fighting, let alone a room filled with _knives._ She didn't know, but that just seemed to be asking for trouble. 

“Is this another one of those things you think I should know because I’m a girl?” she deflects.

Sherlock, in an uncharacteristically playful mood, grins and winks at her. He gets a knowing gleam in his eye and spins around in a flurry of frenetic energy.

“Mrs. Hudson!” he calls and jaunts down the stairs leaving Jane in the kitchen thoroughly confused.

A moment later he bounds back into their flat, and it’s Jane’s turn to double over in laughter.

“Is that Mrs. Hudson’s?” Jane guffaws. She can’t resist coming over to tug at the ruffles edging the ridiculous flowery apron hanging from Sherlock’s neck. He looks scandalised and smoothes a hand down his front.

“I don’t want to get my shirt dirty,” he says, imperious. She snorts, but will have to admit, it wouldn’t do to _besmirch_ the fine cobalt blue silk. Bloody fashion model with his expensive clothes.

“Turn around, you daft git,” she says and sets about trying the apron around his waist while he unbuttons his cuffs and begins rolling up his sleeves. “So what is all this about? Are you really going to cook?”

“Of course. We have to eat at some point,” he says and pulls out some pots and pans along with the ingredients he garnered from Mrs. Hudson. 

Jane arches a sceptical eyebrow. “‘We?’ You’re eating too?”

“I always eat what I cook,” he says roguishly. Then, like a miniature tornado of culinary ingenuity, he whirls about the kitchen turning on the cooktop, dropping what Jane thinks is a ridiculous amount of butter in a sauce pan, and cutting open the bag of rice with a (hopefully clean) scalpel. He tosses her a wooden spoon without looking and commands: “Stir. Don’t stop lest you burn something else.”

“Bossy,” she says, but stirs the melting butter in the sauce pan as Sherlock commences to cut up an onion. He adds some minced garlic to the mix, and throws the contents along with the rice into the sauce pan with the type of lackadaisical panache only he can manage.

“Keep stirring. I need to find some wine,” he says rubbing his hands together in glee as he takes off in the direction of his bedroom of all places in search of said wine. Jane huffs a breath out of her mouth causing her fringe to fly up, and takes to her task, stirring clockwise for a bit before switching to anti-clockwise a moment later.

“Where did you learn to cook, anyway?” Jane calls down the hall.

“I taught myself,” he says coming back to the kitchen, a bottle in hand. “Once you understand the fundamentals, it’s simple chemistry in the end.” He uncorks the bottle and pours a liberal amount into the pan, taking over the stirring. Jane picks up the wine and nearly has a heart attack.

“Sherlock! This wine is over two thousand pounds!” She didn’t know much about wine, but she recognised the brand immediately. Her sister Harry was what some would call…a wine enthusiast, and her favourites where absurdly expensive wines from obscure places like the French country-side and what have you.

“Is it?” he says vaguely. He pours a ladle of chicken stock into the rice and stirs manically.

“Where did you get it?”

“My wardrobe.”

“No I mean…before that.”

“Oh. It was a gift from someone, can’t remember his name. He was a vineyard proprietor, and I managed to stop his brother from taking the business right out from under him. I’ve never had a reason to open it until now.”

“And you kept it in your wardrobe,” Jane says sadly, shaking her head. She pulls out two wine glasses and pours them some before clearing a space at the table. She comes back over and leans against the counter, watching as Sherlock continues to add stock to the rice in increments. After a few more ladles-full, he brings the spoon up to his lips and blows away the steam.

Carefully, he holds it up to her mouth, a hand cupped under in case he spills, and in a low velvet voice he says:

_“Taste.”_

A small shiver traces down Jane’s spine, and she takes the spoon between her lips, allowing the buttery risotto to melt on her tongue. It’s sinfully delicious, and she’s not sure, but she thinks she makes some type of embarrassing orgasmic-like noise in the back of her throat, but at the same time she could hardly be arsed to care. My god, it was good.

“ _How_ can you say eating is boring after _that?”_ Jane exclaims, and Sherlock goes back to stirring, almost sheepishly.

“It is,” he says not meeting her eyes. “Usually.”

“But you can cook! I mean, _really_ cook! The whole, bachelor thing you’ve got going on is quite a ruse.”

“It’s just _chemistry,_ Jane. Besides, cooking has been rather pointless up until now.”

“What do you mean?”

Sherlock frowns a little, focussing intently on the wooden spoon as it carves its way through the creamy risotto back and forth, back and forth, leaving little figure eights in its wake. Finally, with a rueful half-shrug he says,

“I’ve never had anyone to cook for.” 

The simple statement startles Jane, and an unexpected sadness wells up within her causing her to swallow around a sudden lump in her throat. It’s rare that she is reminded of the depths of Sherlock’s loneliness, but when moments like this do surface, she is left struggling to reconcile how it came to be that he was alone for so long. Maybe she really is different like Mycroft seems to think, because she apparently doesn’t see what everybody else sees when they look at him. 

Where people see arrogance, she sees the fiery passion behind the cool calculated logic.

Where people see him as a freak, she sees only brilliance. Blinding brilliance.

And where people see his callousness, she only sees a heart that has been scarred too many times to count.

A heart she wants to hold and protect with her bare hands.

“Well you do now,” Jane says resolutely after a minute. “Now set the table. I’m going to go fetch Mrs. Hudson.”

In that moment, over a steaming pot of risotto in the middle of their funny little flat in Central London, Jane vows that Sherlock will never be alone again. 

Not if she can help it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Risotto Sherlock makes can be found [here.](http://www.thekitchn.com/weekend-cooking-how-to-make-a-63452)
> 
> And yes...I really have burnt soup before. *hangs head*


	23. Benedict

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~Mycroft and Ben hit it off due to ruined Italian leather...~~  
> 
> oh my god that summary sounds so kinky. maybe I'm just tired. you get the idea...oh god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone just now reading, I felt as if Benedict deserved another chapter. Takes place right after the chapter [Dog Day Afternoon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/914021/chapters/1968259) and I hope you like it!
> 
> Also in conjunction with the chapter [Something New](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801/chapters/2083840) in part five of this series.

Mycroft sits across from Sherlock in the sitting room of 221B and sips his tea suspiciously. 

He received the text not twenty minutes ago from his younger brother; a single line reading _‘I need help with a problem,’_ and although Mycroft was in the middle of a very important meeting with the French Ambassador, he excused himself and headed directly over to Baker Street. To which Sherlock opened the door and actually _invited_ him in and then proceeded to _make tea._

“Are you dying?” Mycroft says. He didn’t think so. Surely his sources would tell him if Sherlock had been ill or to the doctor’s recently. And there was always Jane. Who was curiously absent at the moment.

“You would like that wouldn’t you?” Sherlock says with a bored drawl to his words. He checks his watch impatiently. “Jane will be here shortly then we can begin.”

“Begin with _what?_ I hope you know I was in the middle of something important.”

“This is important,” Sherlock snipes. Mycroft glares at him, and Sherlock rolls his eyes and leans forward regarding him under his dark fringe. The favour he was gearing himself up to ask was painful, (as any favour was seen as a blow to his pride of course) that much was certain, and Mycroft sits up straighter in his seat. After a minute, Sherlock meets his gaze with a hard glare of his own. “I need you to get rid of someone for me.”

Mycroft’s face darkens. “Are you being threatened?” he says dangerously. If so his surveillance team would have a lot to answer to when he got back.

“In a manner of speaking,” Sherlock grumbles, and Mycroft is half way through firing his entire surveillance team via text message when a sonorous bark rings out from down stairs. Moments later Jane enters the flat followed by — of all things — a large, _red,_ dog.

“Oh hello, Mycroft,” she says hanging up a leather lead next to the door. The dog does a little turn in the centre of the room, tail wagging before coming directly over to Sherlock and pawing at his trousers. Sherlock sneers and tucks his legs up to his chest. Despite himself Mycroft smirks.

“Good afternoon, Jane. I see you have a new lodger,” he says making civil conversation and getting to his feet.

“What? Oh. Sherlock didn’t tell you?”

“I thought it would be better coming from you,” Sherlock says glaring at the dog who is now in the process of nudging the underside of his foot, much to his obvious annoyance.

“Tell me what?” Mycroft says exasperated. He pulls a pocket watch from his waistcoat and checks the time.

“Oh no, I’m not letting you get out of this. It was your idea,” Jane says and sits on the sofa with the paper.

Sherlock scowls, and pushes at the dog’s head to try and get him away, but this only seems to encourage the beast who jumps up and licks a large stripe of slobber up the side of Sherlock’s face.

“Erugh!” he exclaims and leaps out of the chair. “You hairy, slobbering, disgusting animal! Get _away.”_

The dog dances away and plops down on his belly, playfully wagging his tail.

Mycroft, usually so controlled and unflappable, is utterly incapable of repressing his laughter for once. 

“Yes, yes, very amusing,” Sherlock says wiping his face with his sleeve. “You can see my problem.”

“Wait, _this_ is who you want me to get rid of for you?” Mycroft says, another round of chuckling gripping him in its throes. “He’s just a dog, Sherlock. What do you want me to do, throw him in the Thames?”

Jane, who was likewise giggling behind her hand says, “He thought you could keep him.”

“Pardon?” Mycroft says wiping his eyes and catching his breath. “You what?”

“He doesn’t have any owners, and I know how you used to look after the strays around the country house,” Sherlock says. He looks uncomfortable suddenly, and looks around for his violin. He settles on fiddling with the bow that was in the stand with the fire place poker for some reason along with, of all things, a wicked looking saber. He eyes the horse hair thoughtfully, a faint blush colouring his cheeks.

Mycroft recognises Sherlock’s discomfort for what it is, and he wants to say it, almost does in fact, the cloying _‘How_ sentimental _of you, Sherlock’_ tingling on his tongue like a glob of sickly sweet honey. But he stops himself when he catches Jane Watson’s proud expression directed in his brother’s direction. The sight nearly derails him; the possibility that another human being could feign any modicum of pride, or affection, or sheer adoration where Sherlock was concerned, anyone other than _him,_ was enough to stop him in his tracks.

Instead, he makes a show of haughty disdain, and adjusts the cuffs of his suit. 

“I always look after _you,_ don’t I?” Mycroft says mock-scathingly which ironically puts his brother at ease more so than anything else he could have said. As if he would say anything maudlin in the first place.

“Aha, so to imply that I am a stray then you admit to the fact that I am indeed adopted,” Sherlock says jabbing the bow at him.

Mycroft rolls his eyes. “For the hundredth time, Sherlock, we are unfortunately, related.”

“Does this mean you’ll take him, then?” Jane asks jumping eagerly to her feet. She comes over and crouches next to the dog where he rolls over to allow his belly to be rubbed.

“I suppose it wouldn’t do to leave him to his own devices. Or for Sherlock to experiment on,” Mycroft says, and Jane positively beams at him. He fights a smile of his own, and can see why his brother often craves being on the receiving end of one of those smiles. “I know of a good kennel where he will be well looked after —”

“No, no, no, no,” Jane says getting back to her feet, her smile dropping off of her face. “You can’t keep him boarded. He’s very social, and he likes walks, and he doesn’t like the dark.”

Mycroft blinks a few times in confusion. Surely Jane didn’t expect him to —

She hands him the lead, and retrieves a ceramic dog bowl with the name ‘BEN’ stenciled on the side.

“Ben…?” he says, a little at a loss, and Sherlock snorts.

“Yes, short for Benedict,” she says as if it were obvious. He goes to protest once more, but the devastatingly hopeful expression on Jane’s face stops him. That’s twice now, and he wonders abjectly if he has a brain tumour. He shoots a look in Sherlock’s direction that says, _‘how do you ever say no to her?’_ to which he replies with a smug lit of his eyebrows. Jane comes back out from the kitchen one last time with a bag of dog food and hands it to him as well. “He already likes you.”

“You sound so sure,” Mycroft says dubiously, eyeing the dog who is now regarding him curiously from his place next to Jane’s feet. He cocks his head inquisitively, ears perking up slightly.

“It’s true. Go on, call him,” she says.

Mycroft, summoning his aristocratic grace and absolutely refusing to feel foolish, clears his throat. “Er. Come here, Benedict,” he tries. The dog just stares at him. “Come on. There’s a dog.”

Sherlock barks out a laugh to which Mycroft staunchly ignores, however, he frowns at Jane.

“Try again,” she encourages.

“Benedict. If we are to live together I require obedience from you. Is that understood?” he says diplomatically, like one does.

Benedict seems to assess him for a moment, tilting his head to the other side as if in comprehension, before taking off down the hall past the kitchen. Jane and Mycroft look at each in confusion for a second, when Benedict comes barreling back into the sitting room, something in his mouth.

With a proud grunt, he lays what looks to be the remainder of a men’s designer shoe (45; left; Italian leather; chewed to utter hell) at his feet.

Sherlock, who had previously been inspecting the screw at the end of his dismembered bow, looks up and growls in frustration. He stomps over and snatches the shoe off the ground and rounds on Mycroft.

“You have to take him, or I swear _I_ will chuck him into the Thames.” Jane can’t help it at this point and breaks out in hysterical laughter. Sherlock narrows a glare at her. “In a duffle bag. With _cinder blocks.”_

“No need for theatrics, Sherlock,” Mycroft says, failing to suppress his own glee. “Benedict and I will get along just fine.”


	24. BONUS -- Three Continents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane and Sherlock trapped in the boot of a car. Or; just another Monday...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Here is another bonus chapter, and my take on Three Continents Watson from canon. The request is from [Julie290](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Julie290/pseuds/Julie290) who asked if I could write a thing where Jane runs into an old Army acquaintance with a jealous!Sherlock. I hope I did it justice, and I should apologise on taking a while with some of your prompts. I haven't forgot I swear. It's like I am playing double dutch, and just waiting for a good time to throw your delicious ideas in. I am still taking requests, and so don't get discouraged if you haven't seen yours pop up yet.

This was not the way Jane thought her Monday would go: trussed up with her back against her flatmate like a proper Christmas goose in the boot of a car. _Fucking lovely._

What was even worse was that apparently he was choosing this moment to sulk instead of putting his massive genius to use other than — _“Try the emergency release.”_ — to which Jane replied — _“No shit. It’s been broken off.”_ — which, admittedly, probably escaladed the impending sulk, but honestly: _priorities._ Deranged kidnappers. Tied up. _Car boot._

She bites off a frustrated growl, and tries to loosen the knots binding their wrists together. Sherlock sighs loudly, and continues to be entirely unhelpful, his fingers limp like a dead fish making it even harder to try and work around. He sighs again, and Jane’s patience unravels. 

“Are you going to do something other than use up all of our oxygen?” she says.

“I don’t know why I should bother. Nothing either you or I do will be of much help in our current positions,” he says haughtily.

“What is your problem? In case you didn’t know, I am in this with you. You act like it was me that got us stuck in this situation,” she says.

“Well given the company you keep, it is rather your fault,” Sherlock says darkly, and Jane freezes. Then after a moment the penny drops: “'Three Continents Jane'.”

“I thought you were unconscious when he said that,” she says closing her eyes.

“Evidently not,” is the terse reply.

What had started out as an undercover mission to garner information from a possible money laundering ring, ended up going spectacularly to hell when one of the men at the club recognised her from her stint in the Army. Both she and Sherlock were then manhandled out into the alley, stripped of their mobile phones, beaten, and then bound and tossed into a nondescript car with dodgy number plates.

“Like I would know he was going to be there, or that he was involved in grand larceny?” Jane says, her temper rising.

“He knew you. Quite well I might add,” Sherlock says huffing out a breath, then inhaling sharply. He probably cracked a rib from the way they were kicking him. Which was just another thing she was going to have to take care of when they —

Wait.

“What are you getting at?” Jane says. She may not be the world’s only consulting detective, but she was an expert when it came to all things Sherlockian. She knew enough when his put-upon air of indifference was reaching just a bit too hard to be believable.

“He backhanded you,” Sherlock says as by means of an answer.

“Yes, and then his lackeys proceeded to kick your ribcage in,” Jane points out. The car takes a sharp turn, and they slide until Jane’s knees bang painfully against something metal. 

“No, he _backhanded_ you, Jane. The man was twice your height, four times your weight; to over power you would be simple.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, that’s pretty much exactly what happened,” Jane says. The car gives another jerk, and she’s pressed more firmly into Sherlock’s back. He growls in frustration.

“Do I need to spell it out for you?” Jane doesn’t reply, and she can almost hear him rolling his eyes. “Look, the man could have taken you with hardly any effort even without his other three men, so why bother to hit you? It wouldn’t have been much of a struggle for him. But he proceeded to not just hit, but backhand you across the face. That speaks volumes in power dynamics. He was asserting his dominance over you in an intensely personal and physical way. So he has a history with you, a rather deep one. That and the deplorable nickname he has for you. What was it? Oh yes, ‘jammy little Bee Stinger’.”

“Well aren’t you a veritable encyclopaedia in social interaction?” Jane remarks bitterly. She was getting a headache, and the constant smell of petrol was beginning to make the back of her throat itch.

“It’s basic semiotics,” Sherlock dismisses, and the car swerves again. This time Jane hits her head on the wall above them. A thought occurs to her.

“Wait, do you actually think me and that inbred man-sasquatch actually shagged at some point? What with your bloody ‘power dynamics’ and what have you?” she asks.

“It’s not my business despite of how utterly obvious it is,” Sherlock says petulantly, and Jane can’t help it but she actually barks out a laugh.

“You’re damn right it’s none of your business,” she says, and then to spite him: “ _Despite_ how utterly _wrong you are.”_

“Oh please. Just before his steel-toed boot connected with my head I clearly heard him mock me for being your _boyfriend,”_ Sherlock says with disdain, air-quotes heavily implied. “If that’s not a jilted lover complex, then I don’t know what is.”

Jane’s mind was reeling. There was a large part of her that was concerned that maybe he had been hit harder than they both thought given how completely _irrational_ he was currently being. However, there was another part of her that was extremely amused.

“Sherlock…” she ventures, trying to rein in the hysterical bubble of laughter before it escapes. (She chalked it up to the fumes.) “are you jealous?”

Sherlock sputters inelegantly for a moment fighting phrases like “How could you _possibly_ — never considered — don’t be ridiculous —” before finally settling on an insistent _“No,”_ that was dubious at best.

Honestly, it was rather endearing. Best time she’s had in a car boot to date, so of course she had to tease him about it. Just a little. They might end up getting killed, after all.

“Come on, I thought you liked bees,” Jane says impishly, and pinches the inside of his wrist.

Sherlock tries to swat her fingers away, but it was useless with the ropes binding them together.

“Jane! Not helping the situation!” he says through what sounds like clenched teeth, and she can’t help it and breaks out laughing. He makes another frustrated noise against her, and she struggles to regain her breathing.

“Sherlock do you even know what he was referring to when he called me a bee stinger?” she asks.

“I’d rather not know,” Sherlock says stiffly, and this almost sets her off again.

“No, no! God you miss every other sexual innuendo thrown your way, and _now_ you decide to read between the lines? It’s a poker term you muppet. It was my nickname in the Army,” she says finally putting him out of his misery.

“What?” Sherlock says intelligently. (Again, fumes.)

“My dad taught me poker at a young age, and I found out I had a knack for it. A really good knack. It’s about strategy and reading your opponent, very tactical if you think about it. Whenever there was a lull in the action what do you think we did to pass the time in the barracks? I built up quite a reputation, if I do say so myself, able to take the bottom out of a poker game across three continents.”

She could feel the gears turning in Sherlock’s mind. “And so when he called you a bee stinger…?”

“It’s a term that means I made him take it up the hind end, and snaked him out of a substantial sum of money,” she says cheerfully. “Hard to forget a humiliation like that, hence the backhand.”

“Ah.”

There was an uncharacteristic silence from the other side of the boot as Sherlock processed this new information. Jane tried not to giggle in spite of herself. Finally after a few moments Sherlock cleared his throat.

“Jane, in light of the fact that I was unaware of all of the data, and possibly due to an impending concussion combined with semi-noxious fumes, I just want you to know that during my lapse in judgment it was never my intention to imply —”

“Oh god, stop,” Jane says putting to end the painful awkwardness. “If this is your way of apologising for calling me a slag then don’t worry, you’re forgiven.”

“Right. Good. That’s fine then,” Sherlock says clearing his throat once more. An odd swell of affection lodges itself in her chest. She pinches his wrist one more time.

“So what are we going to do?” Jane asks, because she just knows Sherlock has already come up with at least six different plans on getting them free. The wanker.

“Ah yes. Well our kidnappers aren’t very bright, and the alley where they dragged us was one of the few that Mycroft’s security cameras actually reach. Good lighting too. No doubt someone is following behind us at this very moment just waiting for the imbeciles to stop circling Oxford Circus in their crude attempt at throwing me off. Also, there is a metal tool box in front of you, likely with a pair tin-snips inside. Do you think you can manage?”

“Yes, but we are going to have to coordinate,” she says, and he chuckles darkly, pinching her wrist back in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bee Stinger -- a vicious 'stinging' loss in a poker hand. (According to pokerterms.com so I am not sure how credible this is but whatevs.)
> 
> And also. Guys. GUYS. Over 6000 hits on this?? You are all amazing, and thank you for your enthusiasm on this. From the bottom of my stinkin' heart. It actually causes me to write faster just so I can bask in your love. I admit, I am a filthy basker when it comes to your guys' love.


	25. This is Jane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or; the three times Sherlock and Jane pretend to be a couple for a case...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all. Sorry it's been a bit on this one. I Just got me a beta, and we were working out some stuff. Emails back and forth and stuff. So here we are! And this will be three times with a plus one eventually so be looking for that!
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [The Curtain Rises](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801/chapters/2102420)

1.

“You called me away from lunch with my sister to go shopping with you?” Jane says as they venture down the Marylebone thoroughfare. 

Sherlock stops abruptly and pulls her over to the side to a street vendor and absently tries on a pair of sunglasses from the display. “We’re not shopping, Jane. We’re tailing a suspect, obviously,” he says and loops a scarf around her neck. She could be abysmally slow on the uptake sometimes. (Honestly.) “Now act like you’re having a good time. And _don’t_ turn around.” He stops her from doing just that by putting his hand gently against the side of her neck as if a lover would do.

“That’s what this is about? You’re in the middle of a case and you just now decide to tell me? Is he armed?” she asks, leaning into the caress a little and placing her hand on his chest. (She was definitely a quick study, that was certain.)

“Likely,” Sherlock says, and Jane smiles flirtatiously and pushes the sunglasses up into the hair on top of his head.

“Did you bring my gun?” she says through her curved lips, and he slowly leans in.

“No,” he says into her ear and plucks a pink rose from the plastic vase just behind her. He presents it to her, and she blushes. She was getting into character better than he had anticipated, and he can’t help but smile at the sight of her rosy flush. It made her look vivacious and bright, and really quite…lovely. 

He suddenly has the urge to shake his head a bit to clear it, but he refrains and his eyes flicker to the suspect just over Jane’s shoulder, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand and not how Jane’s amber irises catch the light. 

“Of course you didn’t,” she murmurs, and leans in to smell the rose, her eyes fluttering shut.

“It’s not my fault you lock it up in that safe,” Sherlock says, and pulls out a few notes from his wallet to pay for the flower.

“Don’t pretend you haven’t worked out the combination already,” she says brushing the petals against her lips and nose.

He smirks at this, and takes the rose from her fingers. He turns her around, his hands cupping her shoulders, and presses his lips to her ear. “You see the man in the telephone box on the street corner?” he intones.

“Mm,” she responds. “Is that him?”

“His name is Melanski. One of the bosses of one of the major crime rings in London Lestrade was called in to investigate,” Sherlock confirms, snapping the stem of the rose in half. “In about another minute he is going to meet his contact in the alley behind Madame Tussaud’s.” He knocks off a few remaining thorns with his thumb and slides the rose into the top of the elastic band that was holding up her hair.

“And I suppose we’re going to meet him there as well?” Jane says, and he grins at the obscene excitement that she was trying to conceal with that familiar fortitude of hers. 

“Yes,” Sherlock says just as Melanski exits the phone booth. “Take my hand,” he says and they lace their fingers together keeping up the charade. They tail the man at a comfortable distance for a while, and only break into a run when he makes his way around that iconic green dome, and out of their sight.

“You’d think if it was a secret rendezvous, he would have picked somewhere less touristy,” Jane says trying to keep up with Sherlock as he threads his way in an out of the milling crowd. “Did you call back-up, yet? Please tell me you called back-up.”

“The man’s an idiot; we can take him easily,” Sherlock calls over his shoulder.

 _“Sherlock,”_ Jane says, and he lets out a huff of irritation. He presses himself against the wall just around the corner. Jane sidles up next to him.

“If I timed it correctly, Lestrade will be here within five to ten minutes,” he whispers.

“Why don’t we just wait then?” she asks, her eyebrows raised as if in challenge even though she clearly knows where this is headed.

Sherlock grins, “Now that’s not very fun.” He pulls out a set of handcuffs he nicked from Donovan. “I only have one pair, and there are at least two people in that alley. Do you want to use them?”

“No you can have them,” she says smugly, body tensing for the fight. “I can manage.”

“Oh, of that I have no doubt,” Sherlock chuckles. “But I wonder if you can do it all without losing the flower in your hair?”

“Is that a dare, Mr. Holmes?”

“Most definitely,” he banters back, and they enter the alley shoulder to shoulder grinning from ear to ear.

2.

_Jane Watson — 3:15 PM  
you’re joking right?_

_Sent — 3:15 PM_  
 _Why would I joke about this?_  
 _SH_

_Jane Watson — 3:20 PM  
I don’t know. an experiment?_

_Sent — 3:21 PM_  
 _Not an experiment. Can you come?_  
 _SH_

_Jane Watson — 3:21 PM_  
 _sherlock you can’t just tell me we have an appointment with the jeweler’s and, oh by the way we’re getting married, through text message without telling me what this is about. is this for a case?_

_Sent — 3:22 PM_  
 _A case, yes. I told you this morning._  
 _SH_

_Jane Watson — 3:25 PM  
you know I can’t actually hear you when I’m not there, right?_

_Sent — 3:25 PM_  
 _It’s not my fault you insist upon that inanity of a job of yours. Now are you going to meet me or not? Our appointment is at 4:30 with Royall Jeweler’s._  
 _SH_

_Jane Watson — 3:27 PM_  
 _details?_

Sherlock grins when he reads the text. Of course she couldn’t refuse the lure of the Game. He could practically picture her gathering her things, already half way to the door with her jacket in hand and some excuse to beg off work. He hits ‘reply.’

_Sent — 3:30 PM_  
 _All you need to know is that we are madly in love, getting married this July, and that the jeweler’s son has a penchant for the occult._  
 _SH_

_Jane Watson — 3:30 PM_  
 _see you there._

__…_ _

__“You owe me a clean kitchen and no body parts in the crisper for at least a month for this, Holmes,” Jane grumbles and she swipes at the swath of chicken blood across the midsection of her jumper._ _

__“How was I supposed to know the housekeeper was into voodoo?” Sherlock says as they stand in front of the Victorian brownstone where the suspect (jeweler’s son, involved in dealing heroine, killed a man at Euston Station, dull) was being taken into custody._ _

__“You knew the jeweler’s son was into the occult, but you didn’t know the housekeeper was a Peruvian witchdoctor?”_ _

__“To be fair, those two instances are entirely unrelated,” Sherlock says. (Honestly, irrelevant data is always deleted.) “I think that jumper has had it, by the way.”_ _

__Jane sighs and looks down at herself. “Do you think we can get a cab to stop for us like this?”_ _

__“Probably not,” Sherlock says and whirls the coat off his shoulders. He hands it to Jane eyebrow cocked in that smug way he knows she hates, and she huffs but takes it anyway. She pushes her arms through the sleeves, and looks down at her left hand where the sparkling diamond ring catches her eye._ _

__“You’ll be needing this back,” she says and works it off her finger. “I can’t believe you actually bought it.” She holds it up to the light, watching the sun glint off of the diamond’s cut surface._ _

__“I needed Royall to open the case it was in so I could take a glance at the pocket watches,” Sherlock says dismissively and they begin walking towards the main road. “Hidden compartments, all of them. American made just like I thought.”_ _

__“Yes, yes very clever,” Jane says with a mock eye-roll. She holds it out to him. “Well now it’s over and you can get your money back.”_ _

__Sherlock holds the trinket up between his thumb and forefinger. He rolls it thoughtfully against the pads of his fingers, and has the sudden urge to tell Jane to keep it. In fact, he _wants_ her to keep it. It’s a bizarre feeling, and before he can dwell on it any longer he clutches it in his fist and tucks it away._ _

__“Right,” he says. She turns back to him._ _

__“I’m famished. What do you say to a curry?”_ _

__He nods absently, and hails them a cab. The whole way he broods, staring out the window as he contemplates the complete rewiring his mental process is seemingly undergoing. He idly twirls the circle of metal in his pocket, glaring at the scenery as it passes by._ _

__3._ _

__Sherlock watches Jane as she eats a mouthful of spaghetti before glancing at the man over her shoulder. (Max Wilder, 48, accountant. Penchant for rape, assault, and battery. Type: strong willed women that can fight back. He likes the struggle. Type: Women around five feet with blonde hair.) His eyes flick back to Jane as she dabs her mouth with the corner of her napkin. He reaches out and takes her hand from where it was resting on the table, sensuously curling his fingers under hers and drawing little patterns on her palm._ _

__She freezes and looks down at their hands. Then at their surroundings._ _

__“God dammit, Sherlock. You’re on a case aren’t you?” she hisses._ _

__“Very astute, Jane,” Sherlock smirks._ _

__“I should have known when you let me sit facing the window. You never let me sit facing the window,” she grumbles, but strokes the tops of his knuckles with her thumb nonetheless, slipping into character. “You’ve got to stop surprising these cases on me like this.”_ _

__“Why? I find your reaction novel,” he says and gets Angelo’s attention from across the room. Angelo holds up two thumbs, a lovesick grin splitting his face, and goes about selecting his best wine._ _

__“Not an experiment, Sherlock,” Jane huffs. “All right, so what is it this time?”_ _

__“The man over your shoulder is a suspect in a string of raped women, two of which ended up dead. The only reason he’s not in prison is because his brother is a solicitor.” Sherlock takes a moment to watch the sympathy flicker over Jane’s face for a moment, and waits for the determination to take its place. He doesn’t have to wait long. (Jane. DoctorSoldier; Avenging Angel.) “I’ve taken the liberty of setting up a sort of sting operation, and I figured you would be amenable.”_ _

__“What do we do?” Jane says, resolve hardening. Sherlock is glad that her back is to their target because at that moment her expression is fierce and burning and would have totally blown their cover. However, there’s a particular thrill he feels at seeing this, and his awareness sharpens to their surroundings as the drip of adrenaline beings to trickle through his veins._ _

__“Follow my lead,” Sherlock says just as Angelo comes over with a fine bottle of Pinot Grigio. “We’re going to do a ‘Headless Nun’.”_ _

__“Oh what a great case! I remember it like it was yesterday,” Angelo says popping the cork and pouring two glasses._ _

__Jane groans. “We haven’t practised that before. You only just mentioned it the other day.”_ _

__“What a better way than to practise through immersion?” Sherlock grins and takes a sip._ _

__“You want me to throw you out again?” Angelo says._ _

__“Not necessary this time, but thank you,” he says and Angelo tips his head with a wink, and makes his way back to the kitchen. Sherlock turns his attention back to Jane. “Okay like we discussed. Make it good, and when you leave don’t look over your shoulder. He’ll follow you, guaranteed, and you just make sure to lead him back to the alley with the security cameras. I’ll be there just behind you.”_ _

__“All right,” Jane says taking a sip of her own wine. Sherlock glances at Wilder._ _

__“You have to get his attention somehow. Shake your hair out,” Sherlock says and caresses her wrist. She flicks some of her hair off her shoulder somewhat seductively. It does the trick. “Good. Are you ready?”_ _

__“Yes. Just don’t make me laugh or else the thing is ruined,” she says, fingers circling the stem of her wine glass._ _

__“Of course,” Sherlock says, and leans forward in plain sight of the suspect, adopting his sleaziest grin. “Just try not to get it in my eyes.”_ _

__On cue, Jane throws her glass of wine in Sherlock’s face and he reels back in mock indignation._ _

__“You _bastard!”_ she shouts getting to her feet and snatching her jacket from the back of her chair._ _

__“What the hell?!” Sherlock says groping for his napkin and sputtering._ _

__“Don’t bother calling, either, creep,” she says and storms out of the restaurant._ _

__Sherlock throws the napkin down on the table and demands the cheque, his eyes tracking Wilder all the while as he leaves a few notes on the table before casually making his way out of the restaurant as well._ _

__“Go get him, Sherlock,” Angelo says as Sherlock makes his way through the kitchen to the exit out the back._ _

__He skids around the corner sprinting ever faster when he hears the sound of a scuffle. He runs into the alley, but slams to a halt when he finds it empty. He turns around in a complete circle listening intently for any indication of where they may have gone, when a gunshot slices through the thick air._ _

__The breath leaves him, and the ringing in his ears is deafening. All thought ceases at the realisation that the shot fired couldn’t possibly be from Jane’s gun. The gun that is still locked safely in their flat._ _

___“Jane!”_ he yells, and takes off down the alley where the shot came from, every fibre of his being set on fire with fear that wraps itself like an iron band around his chest. His feet pounding a staccato, the ricochets off the brick walls keep time with his heart that is threatening to burst right out of his ribcage. _“Jane!_ Answer me!”_ _

__“Over here!” comes the sound of her voice, slightly muffled, and he rounds another corner and makes his way around a skip at the back of some antique shop. Jane looks up at him from her position on the ground as she continues to pin a struggling Wilder to the grimy pavement, a manic grin crawling across her face. “Bastard had a semi-automatic. It’s somewhere around here, but no doubt Lestrade will want to process it.”_ _

__“Christ,” Sherlock mutters, the relief crashing through him as he makes his way over to her. He notes the blood dripping from her nose, and his vision goes red with fury._ _

__“Hey mate!” Wilder shouts. Jane grinds her knee even harder into the middle of his back as he tries in vain to throw her off. “Get this crazy bitch off of me!”_ _

__Sherlock crouches to his level and snarls in his face. “It’s over _mate._ You’ve been caught on six different security cameras attempting to kidnap an innocent woman. Not even your brother can get you out of this one.” Before Wilder can protest further, Sherlock’s hand darts out and he digs his fingers into his carotid artery with a vicious efficiency that has the blithering idiot unconscious within seconds. And yet it is not enough, and Sherlock wants to keep squeezing the life out of the man, because if he had — _ _

__“Sherlock,” Jane says, fingers lightly tugging the cuff of his sleeve. Her voice brings him back to the present, and he swiftly removes his hand._ _

__He straightens and tosses a pair of cuffs to her. She snaps them on Wilder’s wrists and stands likewise as Sherlock fists his hands into his hair and paces in short angry strides, the fury sparking like flint to tinder against his frayed nerves. He only realises he is ranting aloud when Jane gently stops his manic circuit, fingers wrapping around his wrists and freeing his poor scalp from his abuse._ _

__“Hey. It’s all right, I’m okay. He was a lousy shot,” she says giving him a small smile._ _

__“He wasn’t supposed to have a gun. Where did he get a gun? I didn’t see it,” he says through clenched teeth._ _

__“You didn’t know.”_ _

__“Exactly. That’s exactly the point. I should have realised, and then I would have never —”_ _

__“Sherlock,” she says, hands squeezing his._ _

__He deflates a little, a gusty breath whooshing out of him. He looks down at their hands for a moment. (Her hands are soft, lightly calloused. There is a fine scar from a scalpel in the webbing at the crook of her thumb, and he wonders how she got it.) He looks back up and pulls a handkerchief out of his breast pocket. Carefully, he wipes the blood from around her nose and upper lip, the backs of his knuckles grazing her cheek before he reluctantly pulls away._ _

__“So how did I do?” Jane whispers, searching his face. “Not bad for our first ‘Headless Nun’ act, I thought.”_ _

__Sherlock huffs a small breath of laughter. “No you did quite well. I’m glad we went with the white,” he says and looks down at his shirt; the pearl grey one._ _

__“You ponce,” Jane says affectionately. “Hurry up and call Lestrade already. Maybe we can finish our dinner, and if you’re extra nice to me I’ll even let you pick up the tab.”_ _

__“Oh really?” Sherlock says arching a supercilious eyebrow. “What makes you so sure?”_ _

__“Well, we were for all intents and purposes on a date. One that ended horribly I might add. And this is me letting you make it up,” she says cheekily._ _

__“Good thing Angelo always lets us eat for free, then,” Sherlock says through a smirk, and pulls out his mobile._ _

__“Good thing indeed,” she smiles._ _


	26. A Bit Reckless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sally doesn't have time for this shit...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter! It's from Sally's POV and I hope it turned out all right. Haha and hopefully this back to back will make up for making you guys wait so long on the last update.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Distance and Distraction](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801/chapters/2115502) in part five of this series.

Sally snaps the handcuffs over the suspect’s wrists and hauls the sodden shivery mass to his feet. Ignoring his colourful use of the word cunt, she hands him over to a constable to be secured in the back of the Inspector’s car, and marches over to where tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum were sitting in the back of an ambulance, soaked to the bone and grinning like absolute loons.

“God dammit, Sherlock!” Lestrade says. “How many times to I have to tell you not to go after criminals? You’re civilians. The apprehending of dangerous suspects is meant for the police.”

“Well, technically I didn’t go after Phillips. I went after Jane. Who went after Phillips,” the Freak says and they both start laughing again as Jane elbows him in the ribs.

“Berk,” she says under her breath.

“Bint,” he rejoins.

“Snitch.”

“Idiot.”

“All right,” Sally says cutting in. It was bloody cold and she didn’t have the patience for this shit. “I’m gonna need statements.”

“Right. Thank you, Sally,” Lestrade says glaring at the two of them, and turning to leave before the Freak can protest.

“You can’t be serious, Lestrade!” the Freak says to his retreating back. “We’ve just been pulled out of the Thames, surely paperwork can wait until tomorrow!”

“Not having it tonight, Sherlock. Do as Sally says!” Lestrade says waving his hand in a dismissive gesture as he makes it to his cruiser. Sally can’t help but smirk at his abashed expression.

“That’s a good look on you. Drowned rat,” she remarks and he sneers at her.

“How’s Anderson, Sally? You know he’s never going to leave his wife, so I don’t know why you bother with upgrading your wardrobe.”

Sally grits her teeth. “I’m not seeing Anderson, if you must know.”

His eyes narrow and he gives her his customary once-over. “Oh yes, of course. But Smith? Really? He’s almost old enough to be your father. And need I remind you he’s _also_ married?”

“Shut it, Freak,” she says, temper rising.

“Is that something that you go for, then?”

“Sherlock,” comes Jane’s low warning.

“Shut up.”

“A misguided Electra Complex? Daddy issues?”

Before Sally can think about punching the bastard in his smug face, Jane goes to reprimand him again only to be interrupted by a wet sounding, gravel sort of cough, and his attention immediately snaps to her. Instantly, his expression changes into something that has Sally nearly reeling back at the sight.

Where there was once the stoned faced epitome of cruelty there is suddenly the soft, furrowed edges of concern as Jane’s coughing carries on a little longer than it probably should.

“Jane?” he says laying a hand on her back as she continues to cough. A paramedic moves him to the side so he can look into Jane’s face. “What’s wrong, what’s happening?”

“Sir, I need you to move aside,” the paramedic says and Sherlock gets to his feet. Jane tries to wave the man away as he pulls out a stethoscope attempts to listen to her lungs.

“I’m f — ine,” she says through a hitching breath, the heel of her palm kneading her breast bone. “Really.”

“You’ve aspirated quite a bit of water,” the paramedic says as he frowns. “I recommend we book you and keep you monitored in the event of dry-drowning.”

“Oh for chrissakes! Really I —” she doesn’t finish, however, as another set of coughing over takes her. They go on longer than before, her lips turning an alarming shade of blue, and suddenly the paramedics are hauling her up by the arms in a flash and onto a gurney.

“Jane!” Sherlock says and tries to climb up into the ambulance with her.

“Sir, you _need_ to move aside.” They begin to attach an oxygen mask to Jane’s face, trying to coax her into catching her breath.

“Oi,” Sally says, and gently clasps Sherlock around the arm, getting him to take a few steps back.

“Sher — Sherlock,” Jane tries. “— be fine. Jus’ — just got some river in my lungs.” She gives him a weak smile that does nothing to ease his frantic concern.

“Let me ride with her,” he says and surges forward despite Sally’s grip on him.

“You can’t. You can meet her at the hospital, sir,” the paramedic says and slams the door. Sherlock makes an abortive gesture when the ambulance pulls away before dragging his fingers through his hair.

“Hey,” Sally says as he begins pacing and muttering under his breath. He really was in a state, and it was bizarre, it really was. “Hey, Freak.”

He ignores her and lets out a noise of frustration, taking off in the direction of the nearest street in search for a cab no doubt. It was late, though, and chances of getting one were rather slim. She hurries to catch up to him, and grabs his arm again.

 _“What?”_ he shouts, rounding on her. He rolls his eyes as if just remembering she was there. “Do you really think I have the time to give a statement at the moment? Besides, don’t you want to get home already? You were planning on a date tonight, weren’t you?” he snarls nastily.

Sally should be offended at this, and in normal circumstances she would be. But in that moment she recognises his hostility for what it really is. Fear.

The thought of Sherlock Holmes actually caring about another human being is enough to make her head explode if she thinks on it for too long. So she does the next best thing and glares at him, and tries not to dwell on what she’s about to offer next.

“Shut up. I’ll be needing _both_ of your statements, you tosser, and I can take them at the hospital just as well as NSY. It’ll be faster if we both take my car. Are you coming?” she says and gestures to her cruiser parked along the street.

Sherlock looks from her to the vehicle uncomprehendingly for a moment, shock clearly written on his face. If she weren’t so discomfited at the fact she was actually doing the Freak a favour, she would probably laugh. Instead, she arches her eyebrows almost in a dare, and he straightens his greatcoat as imperiously as he can given it was still sopping wet.

“Of course,” he says, and doesn’t wait for her as he makes his way to the car.

She rolls her eyes in exasperation, but part of her can’t help but smile a little.

The smile fades however, when she gets in and the first thing he does is tune all of her radio stations to classical music. The wanker.


	27. Sherlock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the notebook of Janette H. Watson, M.D.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey you guys. I've been playing around with the idea of journal entries in my other story, and wanted to try this out. Hopefully it tickles your fancy even though it is rather short. I'd thought I would pay hommage to ACD canon, so Jane's list is almost exactly like Watson's from 'A Study in Scarlet.' I'd like to know what you guys think, and a tremendous thanks to those of you who are reading!
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Distance and Distraction](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801/chapters/2115502) in part five of this series.

[](http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/oleanderhoney/media/notebook_zps671dff73.jpg.html)

[](http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/oleanderhoney/media/notebook2_zpscacaa2ef.jpg.html)

[](http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/oleanderhoney/media/sketch_zps698a2c31.jpg.html)


	28. BONUS -- Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock faces one of the toughest cases yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look another update! Okay so this is based off a prompt from the delightful crazyeights who requested I write a case where Sherlock and Jane come across a little girl, and crazyeights wanted me to feature a maternal!Jane. I ended up using the case Jane refers to in the chapter ['Distance and Distraction'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801/chapters/2115502) and it actually ended up being more about Sherlock's humanity. I hope that's okay.
> 
> And just a warning, there is quite a bit of violence in this chapter. It's pretty heavy, I'm not going to lie. So you have been forewarned.

The case was a grueling one that started off as a brutal double homicide involving a pair of twin sisters slaughtered in their beds, their throats slit while they slept. 

After taking stock of the scene, (observe: blood spatter; observe: impressions on the carpet, size eleven foot; observe: they way their hands are folded across their chests) (do _not_ observe: the dried tears of the second sister who was presumably awake; do _not_ observe: Jane’s devastated face) Sherlock realised that the killer, the twins’ father, was still out there, and he likely had his wife hostage in the throes of his violent insanity. 

Time was running out, and if he didn’t find the suspect’s trail, the woman would most certainly come to the same fate, if she hadn’t already.

It was nearing the end of twelve hours when Sherlock finally parsed through the data (not fast enough, not nearly fast enough) and figured out that a paper trail pointed them to a block of flats in the Strand registered under the woman’s maiden name. 

For once Jane didn’t argue about waiting for Lestrade and his team, and they took off, barreling through the night, a grim tension threading between them as they rode in the cab in silence.

When they at last enter the flat and see the scene for themselves, (body, female, Caucasian, mid-thirties, stabbed fifteen, no seventeen times, only been dead an hour, blood, so much blood.) (Late, he was too late.) Sherlock is overcome with a failure so powerful it forces the air out of his lungs in a condensed hiss, leaving him bereft in the midst of the wreckage. 

“No. NO,” he grits through his teeth and slams his fist through one of the kitchen cabinets. “This _wasn’t_ supposed to happen!”

Jane clatters down the stairs a moment later, tucking her gun back into her waistband. “It’s safe.”

“He got away,” Sherlock says. It’s not a question, and his mounting fury is potent like battery acid in the back of his throat making him swallow hard against the bitter taste.

“It seems so,” Jane says. She scrapes her hair back from her face, her complexion wan.

Sherlock huffs a bitter laugh. “ _Fucking_ coward,” he rasps, and kicks over a cardboard box at his feet. He lets out a frustrated snarl, clutching fistfuls of hair as his mind roves over and over the data, trying to figure out if there was something — anything that could have lead him here that much sooner. But there was nothing, nothing, _nothing._

In the end he almost missed it, too overcome with anger and his own mouldering impotency to solve what should have been an easy case by his standards. But at the last minute, he registers the pink teddy bear next to the upended box, and barely manages to shove Jane out of the way as the suspect comes flying out of the panty, gleaming knife in his hand.

Sherlock doesn’t think, he just throws himself at the man with all of his might, tackling him around the waist and bringing him to the floor. He knocks the blade away, and yanks him up by his lapels before slamming him back down against the lino. It does little to quell his boiling rage, and he does it again and again until he is beyond unconscious and Sherlock’s distantly aware that Jane is pulling him off lest he kill the man right then and there.

“Sherlock! That’s _enough!”_ she shouts shoving him up against the wall, forearm pressed against his throat in warning, her eyes flashing dangerously. He hears sirens in the background and his mind clears a little, the red bleeding out of his vision bit by bit as his rationality comes back to him. He inhales sharply and looks around.

“The girl. Where’s the girl?” he says, and Jane looks at him with surprise.

“What girl?” she says taking a step back from him now that she knows he’s got himself under control.

Sherlock doesn’t respond. Instead he makes his way over to the abandoned teddy bear and picks it up. (Not two sisters. _Three_.)

Cautiously, he approaches the pantry and eases open the door that’s barely left on its hinges. There, in the back by the shelves, is a small terrified figured curled in on herself, knees drawn up to her chest, head buried in her hands. Sherlock crouches down and makes his way across the floor, the bear tucked under his arm, and he puts a hand gently on her head. She cringes, but looks up at him, wary yet somehow defiant. She was really quite brave for someone so young.

“It’s all right. I won’t hurt you,” Sherlock says and holds out the bear.

“Is he dead?” she asks through the watery tremor in her voice. She takes the stuffed animal, and holds it close.

“No,” Sherlock says.

“Is my mum…?” she says, voice catching. Sherlock doesn’t know what to say, but his expression seems to be enough because a fresh wave of tears springs to her eyes. He looks over his shoulder at Jane standing in the door way and he goes to get up, but before he can his arms are suddenly full of trembling terrified child.

“Er…?” he says, and for lack of knowing what else to do, he tentatively brings his arms around her delicate frame. “It’s all right,” he says again patting her gently. She flinches as Lestrade and his team make their presence known as they barrel into the flat, the DI’s gruff voice barking out the ‘all clear’ moments later. “That’s just the police, no need to be frightened. Can you stand up?”

The little girl nods against him, and they both pick themselves off the floor.

“I have a friend. She’s a doctor. Is it all right if she looks you over for injury?” Sherlock says, leading her out into the kitchen by the hand. She suddenly stops, her wiry fingers gripping his impossibly tight, and he turns to face her.

She’s gone white, her eyes glued to the body of her mother lying in a pool of her own blood, and Sherlock curses inwardly. (Stupid. He was just about as delicate as a hammer when it came to matters like these.) In an instant he drops down to one knee in front of her, effectively blocking her line of sight.

“Don’t look,” he says cupping her chin, and motions for Jane. She kneels down likewise helping to shield her from the proceedings going on behind them. “Keep your eyes fixed on me. Do this now, there’s a good girl,” he says, and she fists her hands in his coat collar. “This is my friend I told you about.”

“I’m Jane,” she says softly, and tucks a strand of brown hair behind the girl’s ear. She looks back at her with wide, vulnerable eyes. “Can you tell me your name?”

“L-Louisa,” she stammers through her hiccoughing.

“That’s a very lovely name, Louisa,” Jane says and takes off her jacket. She drapes it over the girl’s thin shoulders and zips it up. “We’re going to go down stairs now, is that okay?”

Louisa looks at Sherlock panicked for a moment, and Jane gently takes her hand warming it between her own. “He’s going to talk to the police officers and make sure that man never hurts you again,” she says.

“You promise?” Louisa asks turning her penetrating gaze back on him, her tear tracks shimmering under the florescent lights.

Startled, Sherlock blinks a few times. “Of course.”

“Thank you,” she breathes, and the only thing he can manage is a nod.

Jane pulls the little girl close and whispers something in her ear, and then puts a hand over her eyes. Louisa nods, and keeps them closed, wrapping her arms around Jane’s neck as she lifts her up. Sherlock watches as she tenderly cups the back of her head, holding her close as she carries her out of the flat and down to a waiting ambulance.

His heart thuds painfully in his chest at the sight, and for the second time has to swallow around the odd thickness in his throat.

“Here,” Lestrade says, suddenly at his side with a glass of water. Sherlock doesn’t ask, and he takes a sip. “Wanna tell me what happened? The man’s raving like a lunatic, saying you were going to kill him.”

Sherlock breathes out a deep breath, and drags his eyes upwards to meet Lestrade’s. “I may have got carried away.”

“He’s got a concussion, and a cracked rib,” Lestrade says simply. 

“Am I under arrest?”

“Nope. The way I see it, you aren’t apart of the force so conduct doesn’t apply to you. You were only looking out for the girl’s best interest, and if that meant rattling the sorry bastard’s skull then so be it. God knows he already had a few bolts loose, the sick fuck.” Sherlock hums absently in agreement. As a father of two children himself, Sherlock doesn’t wonder at the malice in his voice. “How’s the little girl?”

“How is she? Her father just murdered her four-year-old twin sisters then brutally stabbed her mother over a dozen times while she was most likely forced to watch,” Sherlock snaps. (What an imbecilic question. Why do people always insist on speaking even if they have nothing _relevant_ to contribute —?)

“Hey,” Lestrade’s says placing his hand on his shoulder and interrupting the vitriolic tempest of his thoughts. Sherlock shrugs him off, and rubs the back of his neck in attempt to ease the binding tension. “You did good. You caught him.”

“It wasn’t good enough,” Sherlock says, and stiffly tugs the collar up on his coat. He turns his back on the Inspector, suddenly unable to remain in the cramped flat for a second longer. “I’ll meet you back at Scotland Yard.”

…

Later, after Donovan has taken their statements, and the suspect has been processed, Sherlock makes his way to the lounge where Jane is seated on the sofa against the wall. The television is on, but muted, and a cup of coffee sits abandoned on the small table, likely stone cold by now. She’s humming under her breath and running her fingers through Louisa’s hair as she sleeps soundly with her head in Jane’s lap. 

Sherlock takes the seat next to her, and watches for a while.

“Social services will be here shortly,” Sherlock finally says, his voice low so as not to disturb the sleeping child. Jane nods, her hand stilling its ministrations. A small frown frets her brow, and suddenly he wants her to look at him so he can try to deduce her anguish from the pinched corners of her mouth and the dull gleam in her eye. Because, maybe if he deduces correctly, he will know how to make it go away. She doesn’t, however. 

“What you did…stopping me. That was good,” he says unable to stand the silence.

Jane’s sudden smile is a bitter, broken thing and it takes him by surprise. 

“I shouldn’t have,” she whispers and brings her hand up to cover her eyes as she chokes back a sob. “How could anyone do that to a child? To their _own_ —?” she cuts herself off again, and Sherlock pulls her hand away from her face, gripping it tightly as it begins to tremble.

“It’s over. It’s all over,” he says, and because he can’t bear the distance between them a minute more, wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her against his side.

She presses her face into the curve of his neck and focusses on breathing.

His hand finds its way to nestle over her stout heart, seeking his own comfort in her steady rhythm as it finally begins to slow, her body melting against him bit by bit as exhaustion claims her.

“You saved her life,” she murmurs, eyes closed. “You brilliant, brilliant man. You saved her life.”

And in the stillness of that little room smelling of stale cigarettes and stained with the beginnings of quiet dawn, they might as well be the only people left on Earth. 

So he lets himself believe that, for now, it is enough.


	29. Good Night, Vienna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane and Sherlock return from his accolades ceremony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys. GUYS. Is it bad if you make your own self melt into a puddle of goo? Okay so after the heaviness of last chapter, I went all out on the fluff. Insulin alert, because seriously this is too sweet I almost died of a diabetic coma. Or maybe it just seems that way to me...any way there is fluff in bulk up in here, and I had a very fun time researching this.
> 
> That being said, you really should listen to Jack Buchanan's [Good-night Vienna](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o38Qwz1j8KQ) it is lovely. And it seemed like Sherlock would know about old British films like this so it was just perfect. I went to Wikipedia to look it up and it was like, bam. Amazing. Okay, enjoy.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['However Improbable'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801/chapters/2151524) in part five of the series.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you actually said that to the French Ambassador!” Jane says as they both crash up the stairs to their flat too high on laughter to bother to keep quiet for Mrs. Hudson’s sake. She looks over her shoulder as Sherlock chuckles. He loosens his bowtie letting it hang lax around his neck, his eyes sparkling with mischief as well as a bit too much champagne. “Where was I if not getting you out of trouble?”

“Ah, I believe you were across the ballroom being chatted up by the Duke of Mains at the time,” Sherlock says and hangs up his coat on the peg by the door. He helps Jane out of her own velvet dress coat, and she enthusiastically kicks off her silver heels as he hangs it up in the cupboard. 

“Implements of torture, they are,” she says with a grimace, rubbing her arch against her shin. “The Duke of Mains? Which one was he?”

“He was the one you so eloquently called an arrogant midget with horrible breath,” Sherlock says smirking. 

“He was shorter than me! And the things he suggested…he could make the Devil blush,” she says and collapses onto the sofa, her midnight blue evening gown cascading over her legs like a waterfall as she props her feet up on the coffee table. She pats the seat next to her, and Sherlock pushes himself off of the door jamb where he was leaning, and follows suit.

“Thank you for accompanying me,” Sherlock says leaning his head back against the wall.

“S’not every day your best mate gets knighted,” Jane says, and Sherlock wrinkles his nose. “Did you see Mycroft’s face during your speech?”

“Mm, yes. One of the few good things about tonight,” he peels an eye open and regards her pointedly.

“There was more than one?” Jane asks picking up on his playfulness. 

“Seeing you in a dress would be another thing,” he says not even trying to hide his grin.

“You can thank Harry for that,” Jane snorts, and nudges him in the shoulder. “And anyway, look at you in a tux. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Ridiculous, isn’t it?” he says, and in response Jane hooks a finger under the black silk cummerbund around his waist and snaps it. He bats her away lazily.

“It really is a shame, though,” Jane says after a while. She stares into the fire burning merrily in the fireplace and reminds herself to thank Mrs. Hudson. She really was a saint.

“What is?”

“I get all kitted up, and nobody even asked me to dance,” she says ruefully.

“Well, that certainly won’t do,” Sherlock says thoughtfully, and before she has a chance to ask, he surges off the sofa and makes his way to his bedroom. A moment later he comes back out with a square piece of cardboard that she recognises as being the sleeve for a 45 vinyl. He pulls out a small record player at the bottom of the book case, and sets it up on the small table next to his armchair.

The iconic crackling static sounds before the tinny sepia noise of a violin starts up, and Jane rises from the sofa so she can take the cover from Sherlock. On the front in bright yellow font is the title _Good-night Vienna,_ and Jane arches an eyebrow as a man with a voice that reminds her black and white flickering screens and film Noir begins singing.

“I’m guessing that’s not Ringo Starr?”

“Who?” Sherlock says, utterly scandalised before taking the sleeve back from her. “No it’s Jack Buchanan.” He receives a blank look for his trouble. “You sense of culture is truly discouraging.”

She hums noncommittally. “Where did you get this?”

“It was my mother’s,” Sherlock says quietly, and Jane’s eyes grow wide. She has never heard him mention his mother outside of arguments and petty jabs between him and Mycroft. It is absolutely novel, and she watches as he lets some distant memory wash over him, his shoulders relaxing, smiling fondly to himself as he sways to and fro in time with the music. She sees the moment when he loses himself to a different time and place altogether, slipping into the past, and not for the first time she wants to know what he was like in his youth before boredom and loneliness ensnared him and bent him towards destruction.

The nostalgic expression on his face reminds her of candle light and makes him look years younger, and in the soft flickering shadows of the fire he looks absolutely…beautiful.

When the record runs out a few minutes later, he immediately jolts back to the present, and resets the needle.

“Come on. Let’s make the most of your dress before you turn back into a pumpkin,” he says beaming a radiant smile at her as he holds out his hand.

“Are you asking me to dance, Mr. Holmes?” she says.

Sherlock, clearly letting the champagne run rampant in his blood still, snaps his heels together and bows dramatically like the proper git that he is.

“I would be honoured if you would accompany me on this next dance, _mademoiselle,”_ he says with his most stuffy high-brow accent, and Jane can’t help but giggle.

“I should warn you,” she says as he pulls her close to him with a roguish gleam in his eye, “I can’t dance; you’ll have to teach me.”

“Not a problem. It’s quite easy,” he says and spins her around just as Jack Buchanan starts up with his _‘Good-night Vienna. Where moonlight fills the air with mysteries…’_ and Sherlock reaches up and pulls the pins out of her hair, releasing it from its elegant French pleat so it hangs softly around her face. “We are going to try and tango, and it is always better to tango with your hair down.”

“Is it really?” Jane says. “Why’s that?”

Instead of answering, he sweeps her backwards into a dip without warning, making her gasp before pulling her upright again. She feels euphoric and a bit tipsy herself, and she can’t stop the grin from lighting up her face as she laughs. 

“Because of that,” he says simply, and turns them about again, this time more slowly. “I’ll lead, naturally, and you just have to do what I do only backwards. It goes long, long, long, short, short. Can you manage?”

“Sounds easy enough,” Jane says looking down at their feet, and Sherlock adjusts her arm so it is supported by his, fingers gently resting on his shoulder, and he grips her other hand with his own.

He manoeuvres her backwards to the beat in three long strides before shortening the last two, and spinning them so they can do it again the other way. Even though it is difficult at first, Jane begins to feel the music within, and the rhythm of _one two three fourfive, one two three fourfive_ keeping time with her pulse.

Before long, they are both moving with ease, and Sherlock dips her again making her dizzy in an absolutely brilliant way that has nothing to do with the previously imbibed alcohol.

He brings her up with a bit more flourish than before and her forehead clumsily knocks his chin setting them both off in a chorus of laughter. The tango disintegrates eventually to where they are just spinning around aimlessly and trying not to bump into the furniture, and Jane doesn’t remember ever feeling so light or so full.

They only pause when the record runs out again, and Sherlock resets the needle one more time.

“I don’t think I have any more tango left in me,” Jane says breathlessly.

“Nor do I,” he says and makes his way back to her. His gaze is suddenly tender and full of that low-burning intensity that makes her shiver, and he brings her arms up to gently clasp behind his neck. Carefully, he places his hands on her waist lifting her up slightly so she takes the hint and stands with her bare feet on top of his. He’s still wearing his shoes. “But maybe, a waltz?” he intones.

“All right,” she says, and Sherlock begins swaying from side to side, turning slowly as the song continues. It’s not really a waltz, more of a slow dance and Jane relaxes into it, closing her eyes briefly.

“This is the song my mother taught me to dance with,” Sherlock says, and Jane’s heart clenches. She looks up at him from under her lashes, and his jade-like eyes sparkle with melancholy and wistfulness in equal measure. He huffs a laugh, “I was always terrible at the waltz.”

“Could have fooled me,” she whispers, and touches her forehead to his. He chuckles deep in his chest, eyes closing as the tempo slows. 

Just as it comes to an end, Sherlock parts his lips, and in a soft baritone, sings the last phrase of the song like a secret shared only between them in the magic of the still night, and all of a sudden, Jane’s heart swells with a love so eclipsing, so pure, she fears it might actually break. 

If he notices the tears in her eyes he doesn’t say anything. He brings a hand up to cup her face, and smiles softly.

_“…Good-night, Vienna…The world is waiting on the edge of a day, just waiting to say…Good-night.”_


	30. Apology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock attempts to be a human. Sometimes...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is part of a request from the lovely Liz who wanted me to explore more of other characters' point of view, so I present to you the lovely Molly. I hope you like it, dear, and I am looking forward to doing more of these!
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Silence and Drowning](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801/chapters/2214797) in part five of the series.
> 
> Merry Christmas! I love you all!  
> xxHoney

“It’s a banoffee pie,” Sherlock says holding it out to her in its simple cardboard box.

Molly continues to stare down at it in disbelief. “Yes I see that,” she says at a loss for anything else to say. He flips the lid closed.

“I made it myself.”

“Y-you what?” Molly says. If she wasn’t suspicious before, she definitely is now. She narrows her eyes. “Why?”

Sherlock clears his throat, finally managing to look as awkward as she felt.

“It was brought to my attention that I have been…ah, remiss as of late. Can we go in?” he says shifting on the balls of his feet.

“Oh yes, of course,” Molly says and finishes unlocking the door to the morgue. She had to resist the urge to pinch herself because she was positive she fell through a crack in the pavement and tumbled into some alternate reality on her way to work because that was clearly the only explanation. She motions for him to go inside, and he breezes past her with his coat and his hair and smelling like his expensive cologne that makes her knees a bit weak and — oh god he was staring at her.

“You left your keys in the lock,” he says, arching an eyebrow.

“Oh gosh,” she says, her face heating to nuclear levels at this point, and she opens the door again so she could grab her keys, the bloody traitors. The door swings shut behind her, and she watches as he sets the pie box on the nearest slab. Good thing it was clean.

“Any spleens you wouldn’t miss?” Sherlock says casually, opening the cooler and checking the contents.

“What are you doing?” Molly blurts.

“Hm?” he says absently opening a plastic container of thumbs. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Um…no?” she says coming over to the cooler. She crouches down and pulls out a plastic bag of spleens, and stands up.

“I’m attempting to apologise,” Sherlock says and eagerly takes the bag from her. Which was a good thing because she would have dropped it straight to the floor because this was Sherlock. Apologising. It was wrong on so many levels.

“Oh god, am I getting fired in the near future?” she says.

“What? No, don’t be ridiculous. I wouldn’t do anything to compromise your position here at Bart’s. Who else would give me organs I could take home with me and conduct all of my nefarious experiments on?” He smiles.

“Nefarious experiments?”

“That’s what Jane calls them,” he says and pries open the bag, taking a whiff. “She simply brought it to my attention that I have been rather more abrasive than was necessary to our working relationship and I have come to smooth things over as it were.”

“Oh…” Molly says, miffed. “Well if that’s all then you can leave.”

“I’m sorry?” Sherlock says surprised, blinking up from the spleens.

The wind deflates from her sails a little bit as his laser like intensity is trained directly on her. “Er, I mean. If – if there’s nothing else I can do…for you, that is.” _Good job Molls. Way to keep your dignity in tact._

He scrutinises her, and she knows she’s done for. She tries to hold his gaze, but fails spectacularly, and her eyes skitter to the floor.

“I’ve upset you again. How? I was told that as far as making amends go I’ve covered every contingency. I’ve taken into consideration your favourite treat and then procured said treat and brought it to your place of work solely at your convenience. Then we proceeded to banter politely and I had assumed all was forgiven.”

“You know you sound like a robot when you do that right?” Molly says mildly amused, her irritation fading in spite of herself. He cocks his head and it reminds her of some overgrown puppy, and the thought alone definitely doesn’t help. She tries to look stern. “All would be forgiven if you were actually apologising.”

“I thought I just —”

“To _me,”_ she says, and his mouth snaps shut. “You’re right, as usual,” she says rolling her eyes. “That was a perfect apology as far as apologies go. It was just for the wrong person.”

“But…banoffee pie is your favourite…?” he says properly confused now. Which if she thought about it she didn’t ever remember seeing before. It cheered her a little, and gave her back a bit of her own confidence. “What am I missing? It’s always something.”

“Let me ask you something: if Jane had never even mentioned that you needed to apologise to me would it have even occurred to you?” He frowns lightly answering her question. “That’s what I thought,” she says sadly, and picks up the pie from the slab. She holds it out to him and he takes it after a moment. “Now go and give this to Jane, because she deserves all of the pies in the world for putting up with you.” He smirks a little at this, but then his expression suddenly turns serious.

“Molly…I’m not very adept at these things,” he says. “But for what it’s worth, I am sorry if I’ve ever given the impression that I do not respect you, and all you do.”

“I know,” she says already having forgiven him the second he looked at her with his adorably perplexed android-like expression. It was nice to see him somewhat hopeless on occasion. “Now go on. Back to your ‘nefarious experiments’, and tell Jane I said hello.”

He smiles one of his true smiles, and she can feel herself blush again.

“I will,” he says, and with pie and spleens in tow, makes his way out of the morgue. 

Molly shakes her head and chuckling ruefully to herself, pulls on a pair of latex gloves. 

_Now…it was time to do the autopsy on that floater they found in the Thames…_


	31. Caress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock has an off-switch. Who knew?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovely loves. Here's a little short fluffy chapter for you guys. I wanted to ~~anthropomorphise?~~ (aw hell that's the wrong word) Sherlock some, and I've always loved the overgrown cat image. By the way, thank you new people who don't really comment or I haven't heard from! Every one of your comments, (nonnies and regulars) brighten my day. Seriously. Picture me as vitimin D deficient and I need to bask in your love because where I live it's too cloudy and the sun is hardly out. Oh and the fact that I never go outside anyway because I am too busy writing fanfic. ;) Anyhoo. This ridiculous analogy is to say thank you all again. And again. And again...
> 
> xxHoney.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Misdirection and Revelation'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801/chapters/2231551) in part five of this series.

“Jane.”

“No.”

_“Jane.”_

Jane purses her lips into a thin line attempting to ignore the insufferable prat. It doesn’t work, and she can practically feel his gaze boring into her. She huffs out an impatient breath when he starts up with jiggling his leg again, bouncing it up and down rapidly to where the heel of his shoe taps an incessant staccato against the floor.

“Sherlock. For the last time, _no,”_ she growls.

At this, Sherlock snaps, and bolts up from his armchair with a wordless roar. He starts pacing manically back and forth, scrubbing his hands through his wrecked hair before turning to her sharply.

“I need it. Get me some.”

“No.”

“Argh! _Stop_ saying that!” he says through gritted teeth.

“You’re the one who told me to!” she says snapping shut the book she was trying to read. She didn’t know why she agreed to this, but she was regretting every second being cooped up with his impossible self. She gets up likewise.

“I know, but now I am _un_ saying it. This whole experiment was stupid,” Sherlock says dramatically flinging his hand out for emphasis.

“Well I don’t know what to tell you. You were the one who disposed of the patches yourself and then proceeded to warn off everyone you knew not to sell you any for the next seventy-two hours all for the sake of ‘science’,” she says making her way over to get her jacket.

“You could get them for me!” Sherlock says.

“Nope. You warned them about me too, remember?” Jane says shoving her arms through the sleeves, and pulling back her hair.

“Damn it all down to the furthest pits of Hell!” Sherlock says and pinches his forehead. His head snaps up suddenly aware of what Jane was doing. “Wait, are you going somewhere?”

“Yep,” Jane says and heads towards the stairs. “You’re driving me batshit insane.”

“I —” Sherlock starts as she shoves past him. She makes it as far as the landing before he stops her with a strangled _“Don’t!”_ that has her glancing sharply up at him. He looks awful, eyes wild, hair an utter tragedy. He opens his mouth a few times like a lost guppy before finally murmuring a soft, “Please.”

It really was quite pitiful, and curse him if it didn’t cause her to melt just a little inside. She schools her face into one of resolve, however, glaring at him until he lowers his eyes somewhat out of contrition.

She sighs knowing she’s lost the battle already, and ascends the stairs once more. “Come on, you berk. Let’s get you sorted,” she says and holds out her hand. He looks down his nose at her with equal parts petulance and disdain.

“I’m not a child, Jane,” he sniffs.

“Could have fooled me,” she rejoins. “Now take my bloody hand so I can fix it.”

He pouts a little (proving her point even further) and reluctantly folds his hand into hers. “Unless you have a high concentration of nicotine laced in the pores of your skin, I don’t see how you can fix it.”

“Shut it, you,” she says and leads him back through the flat. She sits on the sofa, and tugs him down so he’s sitting on the floor between her knees. He angles his head back so he could look at her sceptically upside down. “Don’t give me that look. This works on everyone.”

“What works?” he says, arching an unruly eyebrow.

Instead of answering, she pushes her hands into his hair, and begins to rub his head with her fingertips. He frowns at first, opening his mouth to say something disparaging no doubt, when she changes tack and lightly rakes her fingernails over his scalp.

The reaction is instantaneous like some genius off-switch, and Jane has to fight not to giggle as Sherlock suddenly slumps, the tension draining all at once from his limbs, and he bows his head low towards his chest. She takes this as an invitation to map more of his skull with her fingers, and he lets out a low rumble of approval that for all intents and purposes sounds like a purr. She smirks. He was like a giant, awkward jungle cat, and he arches further into her caress as she roves down to the nape of his neck and then back up. He seems to like that the best given the contented sigh he lets out, so she methodically repeats the action for a while, watching as his dark curls twist and twine almost lovingly around her fingers as her hands move back and forth through his hair.

After a moment, he circles his long fingers around her ankles and kneads gently returning the gesture in his own silent form of gratitude, and she smiles softly to herself.

It’s incredibly relaxing for her too, just sitting here in the peace and calm, that she idly starts humming a tune she picked up from somewhere under her breath.

Sherlock stills, cocks his head to the side to listen before turning slightly to look at her.

“Where did you hear that?” he asks.

“Hm?”

“That song.”

“Oh. I’m not really sure, actually. It’s been stuck in my head for ages, though. Why, do you know it?” she says.

A funny look comes over his face just then, and the corner of his mouth curls up in a faint smile seemingly related to a secret only he was privy to. “It’s an old French lullaby…” he says vaguely, trailing off. She about to ask what the name of it is, but before she can he tilts his head all the way back to rest in her lap with his eyes closed. “It’s curious the things that get lodged in our subconscious. Don’t stop. I like it.”

Chuckling lightly, she frames his face with her palms and draws little circles into his temples with her thumbs. She starts back at the beginning and continues to hum the only part of the tune she knows. 

The world around them fades until it is just the two of them, suspended in the ether of each other’s presence. If everything were to disappear right out side this flat and they were the only ones left in the world, she would be utterly content.


	32. Asleep in Her Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Birds of a feather...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all of you lovelies. Sorry this has taken me a bit longer to update. A few of you have expressed how you like the alternate POV chapters I've been doing, and I've had a lot of requests to do Lestrade. I wanted to take my time on this and make sure his voice really stood out, because he's Greg and is special. Hope you all like it!
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Misdirection and Revelation'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801/chapters/2231551) in part five of this series.

“Freak’s in your office, Sir,” Sally Donovan says with a smarmy curl to her lip.

“Happiness abounds,” Greg remarks sardonically, looking down at the documents in his hands. He was gonna have a massive bill for over-time given this bloody case which meant more sodding paperwork. He grimaces just thinking about himself: trapped under a mountain of papers, reams, and reams of the stuff just crushing him like a freak accident at a paper factory. Killed by a veritable forest of payroll ledgers. They probably wouldn’t even find his body until the next bloody payday, because who else would do it if not for him, right? Damn frustrating.

“Sir?” Donovan says snapping him out of his morbid thoughts of death by filing. God he needed sleep.

“Right. Sherlock’s in there, yeah?” Greg says nodding his head in the direction of his office.

“Yes, and the tosser is in a right foul mood,” Donovan snorts. “He wanted this,” she says shoving — oh good more _papers_ — at him, effectively washing her hands of having to deal with the menace at present.

“Splendid,” he groans. That’s exactly what he ruddy needed. Sherlock’s prima-donna self swanning about, insulting every little thing he said. He flips through the new stack of papers in his hands, eyebrow quirking as he reads over the information. He stops mid-stride on the way to his office, brows furrowing.

It was a murder inquiry. A very _old_ murder inquiry. At first he has no idea what possible reason Sherlock had for asking for this until he keeps reading and finds a hand written statement by none other than the man himself. He does a quick calculation in his head, and Christ, he would have only been thirteen or fourteen at the time. The investigation never took off and the case, a boy who drowned in the pool, was ruled as accidental, much to the irritation of the young detective. If the repeated citations of his loitering around NSY were anything to go by. 

An image of a miniature Sherlock swooping about in his oversized coat pops in his head and it makes him smirk. He was probably a cute little bugger; and even more annoying because of it. Pestering the force, telling officers how to do their jobs, exposing personal skeletons and whatnot. The little shit.

Too bad the Detective Inspector assigned at the time is long gone. That would have been an interesting chat.

Chuckling to himself he goes to push the door open to his office. He stops short, however, when he spots an interesting scene being played out before him. His hand stills over the door knob as he continues to watch through the small gap in the broken blinds.

There was Sherlock of course, standing with his back to Greg as he tries to articulate something to Jane with a blasé wave of his hand.

His niece, the firecracker that she is, isn’t having it if her posture is anything to go by, and she shakes her head sadly before fixing him with a determined look. Sherlock’s response to whatever question she poses next is to shrug. A flicker of hurt crosses her face, and Sherlock suddenly bows his head swaying on his feet as if overcome with an intense bout of vertigo.

Greg recognises the familiar exhaustion radiating from Sherlock in the lines of his sloping shoulders and clenched fists, and he shakes his head in exasperation. Bloody sod always has to run himself into the ground, absorbed like he gets. He’s about to go in there and demand the impossible git go home and get some rest, but he pauses when he sees Jane pull the two chairs in front of the desk towards each other like bookends. She all but commands Sherlock with a firm finger jabbing towards one of the chairs, her mouth forming a resolute _‘sit’_ , pursing her lips in that all-familiar stubbornness. 

Sherlock straightens his coat collar with an offended tug, but — and this is what gets him — actually _listens_ and does what she says. He drops stiffly into the chair with his back to the window, and Greg watches with a huff of amusement as Jane nods, pleased with herself, and sits across from him. Good for her.

Greg realises he should probably go in now, but he still lingers in his covert spot on the other side of the glass. It was interesting seeing these two interact when they thought no one was watching. They were both mad as a box of frogs but surprisingly…really very good for each other. 

In the beginning he was wary of their partnership — and why wouldn’t he be knowing what he does about the both of them? One was a recovering drug addict and a sociopath, self-proclaimed; and the other was an insane adrenaline junkie with good intentions that had no problem stepping in front of a gun or a blade if it meant taking down a baddie. 

At first glance, one would think they were designed for mutually assured destruction, and he was the first one to admit his hackles were raised the moment he pieced together what _really_ happened that night at Roland-Kerr College. Not to mention he damn near blew a fuse when he found out about that bloody tramway fiasco with the oriental tight-rope walkers from Hell. So, naturally, the second he knew Sherlock was leaving town on some case in Eastern Europe, he cornered her, fully intent on getting his niece to see reason where Sherlock was concerned.

The answer he got surprised him, to say the least.

_"The thing you don’t understand about a person like Sherlock, is that he lives in a world with expectations he cannot possibly uphold from people like you."_

_"What is that supposed to mean?"_ he had replied indignantly.

 _"It means that there comes a time when it’s just easier to let people believe what they want to believe,"_ she said with a halfhearted shrug. He frowned at her then, confused at why she sounded so sad in that instant. She saw his look for what it was, and met his gaze head-on. _"It's an isolating existence. Why do you think people like me and him turn to the things we do? Be it drugs, or a different identity far away from those who have already given up on you, it’s the same thing. We’re the same."_

As Greg ruminates, he turns his attention back to the two most infuriating people in his life, and tries to figure out where he got it all wrong. Where he completely missed the blatant facts right in front of his face.

He watches Sherlock fold gently into Jane’s embrace — his head on her shoulder, and her arms enveloping him like wings — and they settle against each other like a pair of doves cloistered in the eaves; taking shelter in the presence of one another the only way doves knew how.

They fit together. But it’s more than that. It’s like they belong to each other, and as he looks on he asks himself if that’s really a bad thing in the end. Has it always been like this for them? A lonely life, held at arms length by everyone? _Given up on?_ It was easy to see how this was the case for someone like Sherlock. Hell, he practically made it his life goal to drive everyone away. Greg just assumed that’s just who he was; he never considered that it may have been safer for him to erect those towering walls he surrounded himself with. That it was safer to be alone.

But Jane? How could he have missed that? He had known her over half her life, and she always seemed happy-go-lucky as far as he could tell. Of course, things did change a little when Henry Watson died. He didn’t know the extent of Celeste’s drinking until much later, (that 'functional alcoholic' bollocks aside) and he admitted how even he turned a blind eye when it started to look like Harriet was following down the same path as both their parents had. He didn’t keep in touch much during those times, but he vaguely remembers a little of that sunshine growing fewer and far between when it came to his bright, young niece. According to her, the only way she kept from losing herself was to join the Army, and find purpose for her life again.

And when she came back…well he knew more had happened over there than just getting shot even though she was reluctant to talk about it. But he could tell something was deeply wrong. She was just a bit more broken, a bit more hollow, and it caused a pang of guilt to roil through him when he recognised what it was at last.

Loneliness.

 _‘It’s an isolating existence.’_

As her words echo back to him, he finally understands what Jane meant about them being the same, and his heart does a funny little skip.

“Oh, Greg. You’re slipping, mate,” he says to himself, shaking his head ruefully. And he called himself a _detective._ It was bloody tragic the way he missed this, as obvious as it is now in hindsight. In that moment he decides he needs to do better by those two because…who else if not for him, right?

Right.

He squares his shoulders, and opens the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, thank you all you kudos leavers! I just grin when I see all of those little hearts in my email!


	33. Ciphers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock Holmes is just so stinking cool. It's just not _fair._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more POV chapter for you guys. I have been obsessed with Anderson ever since TEH came out, and this is just my headcanon on him. It's a bit ridiculous but hey! This is Afters! Hope you all enjoy, oh and I should say that this marks the penultimate point in Afters where the domestic platonic fluff between our duo finally shifts into the romantic fluffiness you all have been waiting for! Stay tuned for the next chapter, 'Tea.'
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Threads'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801/chapters/2296929) in part five of the series.

The first time Phillip Anderson laid eyes on Sherlock Holmes was ironically the first time he was called in on Lestrade’s team as lead forensics.

The man was insane, whirling like a dervish all over his crime scene and pointing out the most random of details. It made absolutely no bloody sense! Come on, using candle wax to forge fingerprints?! It was ridiculous.

And it turned out, god dammit, he was right. 

The next time he ran into Sherlock Holmes was even more ridiculous in the sense that the man didn’t even have to look at the body to determine cause of death. He just flipped through the stack of pictures Anderson gave him and in under five minutes he had determined that the woman died due to a heart attack conveniently at the same time her aggressor was trying to strangle her to death.

“Just look at her eyes! If asphyxiation would have killed her there would be distinct patterns of petechiae. The most you can charge him with is attempted murder,” he said and with a flourish of his ruddy coat he left them to it.

From a forensics standpoint it was bloody…bloody…

 _brilliant,_ and damn it all if he didn’t instantly admire the man.

Sherlock could piece together an entire picture with seemingly innocuous bits of rubbish, and he could slap together criminal profiles at the drop of a hat. It had taken Anderson seven years of schooling, and four years in the field to even manage a shadow of what Sherlock Holmes could do. While bloody _high_ to boot, on some occasions.

God even the way he talked and moved about in his mysterious coat and curly hair — he was like a Byronic hero. Even Sally had a crush on him at one point even though she would never admit it. Who wouldn’t? No one could be that stinking cool all the time, right?

Wrong, apparently. Apparently Sherlock Holmes was just. that. awesome.

He set about trolling his ruddy website ‘The Science of Deduction’ simply to try and find something to negate and call him out on. But by the time he got through his monograph on tobacco ash, Anderson was completely beside himself.

It was incredible. _He_ was incredible. God, if only Anderson could harness some of that genius like lightening in a bottle then he would be set.

Feeling guilty in the wee hours of the morning, he made a name for himself and subscribed to his forum.

He wanted it to be witty and enigmatic so he decided to go with: 

[ _theimprobableone_ ](http://www.thescienceofdeduction.co.uk/forum/page4)

That sounded clever.

That way he could admire his hero from afar while still keeping his pride intact at work, because it wouldn’t do for Sherlock to find out. He’d never hear the end of it. 

From Sally especially.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who knew? Anderson is the biggest fangirl of them all.


	34. Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane is Sherlock's tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Lookit, back to back Afters! I guess you can say I love you guys, like, a lot.
> 
> Hope you like it. It's a bit dewy and romantic, and it's from Sherlock's POV so it's a bit stream of consciousness at times.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Threads'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801/chapters/2296929) in part five of the series.

Sherlock is certain he can map out Jane Watson’s day-to-day history in cups of tea. 

This, in of itself, isn’t anything new.

For example, he knows that Jane can’t function in the morning without something hot to drink. If she had a good night, then it’s classic English Breakfast with a splash of milk, and if there is time, a slice of toast. If it’s a bad night, she foregoes the tea, opting for coffee instead. (Upon an unspoken agreement, Sherlock usually makes this because Jane’s hands shake from the residual nightmares still clinging to her. He knows how she takes it, a dash of pride hold the pity, and he simply leaves it on the counter so they don’t have to mention it.)

Back to the tea.

After her morning cuppa, Jane usually consumes between three or four additional servings of tea throughout the day especially if she has a shift at the surgery. Most of them are high in caffeine if the lingering splotches of black tea on the cuffs of her jumpers are anything to go by. (Which considering he is Sherlock Holmes, it’s quite a lot to go by indeed.)

Then in the evening it’s either more English Breakfast, which to him is preposterous — _‘It says breakfast, Jane. English Breakfast.’ — ‘It’s just a name, Sherlock, let me alone you great menace.’_ — of Darjeeling for its mellow flavour, but rarely Early Grey. When questioned about this, she simply said Earl Grey made her mouth taste funny. (He documented his findings of course, and at every opportunity tried to get her to accidentally drink from his mug, but sure enough she caught on each time. Who knows? Maybe this could be the basis in some research for taste bud sensitivity, and one day there might be super-tasters that can identify the barest traces of arsenic before ingested in lethal amounts—)

(Anyway.) 

The point is, generally, Jane sticks to a certain pattern. She likes what she likes, is the given rule.

There are outliers, with any sample size of course.

For example, Jane will have green tea at night instead of Darjeeling, or that one awful time Mrs. Hudson gave them a box of her herbal soothers. But theses cases are rare, and don’t really interfere with the data he’s already collected.

When he steps back at looks at all he’s compiled about Jane Watson in this seemingly mundane facet of her life, he can admit that it is thorough and tidy. From a logistics standpoint there is nothing lacking in his coverage.

However, this linear model of tea does nothing to explain why Jane smells of the stuff as if she’s been positively steeped in it most of her life; how it’s in her pores, and in the underlying scent of her hair when he curls up behind her in the middle of the night. Or why her hands are constantly warm where his are always cool, or why her voice can soothe his raw nerves like a balm and can get the oppression of langour to ease with a word, or why the dusky arch of her neck can be both creamy white and sun burnt mirth at the same time, or why her irises can look like the very image of liquid honey when cast in the right light. (To his knowledge she doesn’t take honey in her tea, so that can’t be the reason.) 

(Or why, or why, or why, and endless list of why...)

Or why…

when he sips at the brim of her soft lips, kissing her awake from her shattered memories in the middle of the night, he can still taste traces of those cloying leaves in the silkiness of her mouth.

He wonders, not for the first time, if she could eventually read his future simply with how much tea passes her lips — as if the dregs settling deep within her were enough to spell out his destiny over time, appearing like some epitaph impressed upon her skin because surely she would be the last thing written on his headstone. 

If he peered deep enough into her eyes, could he finally see what it means to have the clockwork of his being so wholly synchronised, so perfectly calibrated with the whirring clicking gears of someone else’s heart?

And if — when peering into those bright sunlit windows — she were to gaze back, would she find the fear lurking within his own? What then? What omen would fall from her lips like the petals of a rose in the still night?

She would only have to look the moment daylight has been stripped away to see that he is scared. Well and truly scared for the first time in his life.

Because he has these facts about Jane filed away in his mind, spreadsheets of patterns, permutations, and a plethora of emotion he can call upon at a moment’s notice, but for the life of him, he cannot explain why…why…

(An endless list of why…)

Jane Watson loves him.

Loves _him._

The evidence is there even though she doesn’t say. But when she does, what then? Can he say it back?

He’s only ever let himself believe those words once, and it left him disillusioned and bitter, and completely convicted that love was just a concept the simple-minded found solace in when they were too stupid to devote their minds to worthier enterprises.

But staring into the blinding nova that is Jane Watson, could he really tell himself that love was a lie?

He didn’t know. 

She redefined every construct he had made for himself so far, perhaps she could redefine what he had ardently deemed a deplorable and superfluous farce?

Only time would tell.

For now he is content in the knowledge that they are forged together, irrevocably, regardless of where it takes them like some empirical imperative. Like some binary star system constantly drawn into each other’s orbit, destined to collide.

And if he was destroyed in the process…well he really didn’t have a choice, did he?

So he will simply drift, and drink her in.


	35. Bloody Inconvenient

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The utility of a handbag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahhaha omg guys. This. Chapter. SO I've been hearing how many of you like the fact that the kissing achievement has been unlocked so I figured 'Afters' needed a good one in which Jane and Sherlock snog. Preferably in the back of a taxi. Because that is my kink apparently. Taxi Cab Antics. And...this is what happened. ENJOY! (I'm hyper for some reason, so apologies...ahem.)
> 
> *runs up to you*
> 
> *hands chapter*
> 
> *gets in cab and drives away*
> 
> xxHoney
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Of Cats and Canaries'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801/chapters/2323498) in part five of the series.

“What is the purpose of this?” Sherlock says rummaging in her handbag like a deranged squirrel.

“It’s — will you _stop,”_ she says trying to snatch it, but he pushes her away with one hand, cramming her against the cab door as he continues to peer into the depths of her apparently mystifying purse.

“It’s a handbag, Jane,” Sherlock says pulling out ticket stubs who knows how old from the cinema that had been floating around at the bottom of her bag for who knows how long.

“I’m aware,” Jane says giving up. He was obviously going to do as he pleased until his curiosity was sated. The pillock.

“You never carry a handbag. You just carry your wallet and keys. And gun when applicable.”

“Yes! All right,” she says talking over him, and shooting a nervous glance at the cabbie who is thankfully not paying attention. “You might want to stop casually mentioning the fact that I have one of those in public.”

“Oh our driver is partially deaf, so rest easy,” Sherlock says absently, pulling out a small hairbrush. “Really?”

“Shut up. So I have a handbag, what is the big deal?”

“You’re deviating,” Sherlock says, narrowing a look at her.

She sighs. “No I’m not. In case you forgot we are going to Greg’s award ceremony, and I wanted to look nice. Thought you’d appreciate the fact, besides,” Jane mumbles under her breath. After all he was always poking fun at her jumpers.

He stops and looks up at her, tilting his head as he catalogues her blouse and her dress slacks. “You do look nice.” It wasn’t a compliment, merely an observation, and he goes back to rummaging through her things. “Why do women think they need all of this stuff to necessitate the use of a handbag?”

“I don’t know. I’ll ask one when I get a chance,” she quips sarcastically. She huffs, supremely annoyed, and crosses her arms over her chest. After a moment she licks her dry lips. “Hey while you’re in there can you hand me my lip balm?”

Sherlock stops his frenzied rummaging and pulls out the plastic tube of lip balm. She holds out her hand expectantly and he smirks, uncapping it and applying it to his own lips first. 

“Nice. Real nice,” Jane says rolling her eyes. 

“What? My lips are chapped too,” he shrugs and continues to coat his lips, going clockwise at first and then anti-clockwise for far longer than was necessary.

“Okay, now you’re just being irritating,” Jane says, and Sherlock smacks his lips. She huffs. “Oh good, are you done now?”

“Yes I think I’m sorted,” Sherlock says and holds it out to her. She goes to grab it but he pulls his hand away.

“Sherlock.”

“What? Go on take it,” Sherlock says impishly. “If you can.”

“Give it here,” she says swiping for it again, and he raises it over her head. “Sherlock!”

“Come on. _Captain Watson,”_ he goads waving it in front of her face. She glares in determination.

 _“Holmes,”_ she growls dangerously, and lunges. He puts his hand on her forehead, practically straight-arming her, and chuckles. She jabs him in the side, and the air whooshes out of him in an undignified _‘omph!’_ and she manages to grab his fist, trying to pry his fingers apart where they were clenched around the lip balm. 

He pushes her against the door again, and for a moment she has the urge to bring his hand up so she could bite it. The thought is so absurd it stops her for a moment, and the knowledge hits her that they are two grown adults wrestling in the back of a taxi like a couple of six-year-olds. She laughs, and goes for his side one more time, but he manages to grab both of her wrists in one of his large hands, simultaneously rolling down the window behind her.

“Don’t you dare!” she warns, but it’s too late as he chucks the lip balm outside with a triumphant, and slightly maniacal laugh, complete with head tossing and everything. “You – dammit that’s the _second_ time you’ve thrown my stuff from a moving taxi you gigantic dick!”

He only laughs some more in his rolling baritone, continuing to trap her hands as she tries to punch him again. “You should be thanking me. I’ve lightened your load.”

“I didn’t ask you to. And my lips are still chapped!” she says indignantly trying to throw off his hold. He easily adjusts his grip, a wrist in each hand, and pulls her closer.

“I can fix that,” he rumbles, a wicked gleam in his eye. He leans in and kisses her soundly on the mouth. 

She tries to pull away, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, but damn him, he does that thing with his tongue that she likes, and she tastes the cool menthol of lip balm and the uniqueness that is Sherlock. She gives up fighting and sinks into the rhythm of his lips against hers, part of her hating herself just a little for her surrender, but the much larger part of her completely beyond caring. 

His hold on her loosens, and he brings her hands up to clasp behind his neck. She closes her eyes, and nibbles on his obscene cupid’s bow almost coquettishly, making him chase her to and fro as she pulls back when he’s just on the threshold, time and time again.

He growls, apparently liking that, and he pulls her closer deepening the kiss with a possessiveness that sucks the air out of her lungs.

“Oi you two! Try not to fog up my windows, eh?” the cabbie says suddenly, and they break apart with a wet smack.

“Sorry,” Jane says, her hands sliding down to Sherlock’s chest keeping him at bay. She starts to giggle as they apparently went from squabbling toddlers to snogging teenagers, and he joins her, snickering quietly. “Oh my god.”

“I told you I could fix it,” Sherlock says. Jane rubs her lips together tasting the lingering lip balm, and realises he’s right.

“Yeah you did. I should have taken you seriously,” she pulls away, and he smiles, smug. “Although now I look thoroughly debauched.” She grabs her handbag and digs inside for something. She stops. “Hey…where’s my hairbrush?”

“Oh. This one?” Sherlock says indifferently, holding it at eye-level. He shoots her a mischievous sideways glance, however, his finger brushing over the automatic window switch as if in contemplation.

“Sherlock Holmes. Don’t. You. _Dare.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this ridiculous? Maybe a bit ooc? YES. Do I care? Nope.


	36. BONUS -- The Words that Hurt to Speak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sometimes I go days on end without saying a word..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all. Last chapter I was like hahahha and this chapter I serious'd. 
> 
> So yes. This is actually a request from a wonderful anon who wanted me to write something with Sherlock's violin. The original prompt wanted Sherlock to teach Jane how to play his violin, and it ended up being so much deeper than that in the sense I incorporated some of my Sherlock headcanon in here. I hope you like it dear nonnie! This was truly amazing for me to write and I hope all of you like it as well.
> 
> xxHoney

Sherlock stares out at the dark street, forehead pressed against the window. His dressing gown is falling off one shoulder dipping to the floor and exposing his bare skin to the draughty flat. He shivers lightly, but can’t be bothered to fix it. 

His whole body feels heavy as the oppressive ennui that had ensnared him as of late threatens to drag him down to the bottom of the sea of languor. It felt as if even breathing took too much effort. (Which didn’t matter anyway because breathing was boring.)

He huffs out a long breath, watching it fog up the glass, his mind reeling out and out and out in search of something, _anything_ to attach itself to in order to distract him from the tedium. He scratches at the back of his neck, his skin feeling tight.

“You’ll catch a cold,” Jane says from her armchair as she pecks away on her laptop. He starts, momentarily having forgotten she was in the room. (Well, not forgotten, never forgotten. She was always floating somewhere in the back of his consciousness.) He pulls the robe back up onto his shoulder, and turns away from the window. “Shall I make tea?”

Sherlock goes to answer her, but even that seems to take too much effort, his tongue feeling leaden, and his lungs filled with sand. He shakes his head instead, his eyes flickering away from hers.

“All right,” she says softly, concern unfurling in just those two syllables. He turns away from her and brushes his hand over the violin case propped up against his chair. Playing it sounds good right about now, and in a burst of energy he sets it up on the desk, eagerly unlatching the clasps and flipping open the lid. He looks down at it, and like a sieve, the desire to play suddenly runs out of him. He traces the secret compartment that once held his drug of choice with his fingertips, unable to help his longing for that familiar chemical buzz he would turn to when the black moods hit him hard in the past. He doesn’t have any cocaine anymore, and he doesn’t regret it, he really doesn’t, but he can’t help but…

He sighs, moving his fingers so he is caressing the whorls of the polished scroll, touching the pegs as he moves steadily downwards towards the strings that look silver in the glow of the fire light. He feels Jane come up behind him, a warm presence at his back as she fixes his dressing gown that had slumped off his shoulder yet again. Her hands smooth across his shoulders and cascade down his arms, making his skin feel alive and the tension in his neck abate little by little. He turns to her, and she looks up at him with a question in her eyes.

“Are you not going to play?” she whispers, glancing at the violin behind him. He frowns, wanting to say something in return, but words hurt to speak. (It’s ridiculous. He knows words can’t hurt physically, but since he was young and the torpor seized him like it did, he didn’t know any other way to describe the weight in his chest and how the energy needed to push sentences together drained him so.) He shakes his head again, and she sighs sadly, running her hands down his arms once more, clasping his cold fingers in her own. “What can I do to help?”

He looks at her, surprised. Help? No one had ever asked if there was anything they could help with. It was just the way he was. When he was in his youth, he would lock himself in his room, sometimes for days until the darkness hovering over him dissipated. His parents and Mycroft kept their breadth, and even told the staff to keep their distance from him when he was like this. It never even occurred to him that there was anything he needed help for.

His thoughts must have shown up on his face, because Jane sighs again and brings his hand up to her lips. She kisses his knuckles, leaving her mouth there for a moment longer than necessary in a move that is gravid with tenderness and causes the ice in his chest to slowly melt.

Her kindness never fails to render him down to the bone. It is that genuine, unconditional compassion he didn’t think existed in the world. After all, _kindness_ was just another tool in his own arsenal of manipulation, one he employed regularly to get what he needed. But Jane bestowed it without thinking. It was as natural to her as breathing, and he suddenly realises that her capacity for empathy was far greater than he ever could have anticipated.

Simply, she can’t help but feel, in some capacity, what he does in these moments of painful apathy. 

It makes sense, really. That’s why she became a doctor, and a soldier. It’s impossible for Jane to stand by when people around her are suffering. It’s innate; a part of who she is as if written in her DNA.

So because of this, Sherlock’s hold on her hand tightens when she goes to move away.

“Jane…” he says, his voice a mere husk of itself from going so long without speaking. She gazes at him, eyes burning low and soft like the coals at the bottom of the hearth. He can’t bring himself to say anything more, and closes his eyes against the ache reverberating through out him.

“Tell me?” she implores, squeezing his hand. 

He can’t. He doesn’t have the words.

Instead he guides her closer to the warmth of the fire, his fingers lingering in hers as he manoeuvres her to stand in front of him. He puts his palms on her back, and she gives him a curious glance over her shoulder. He draws her close, hands clasping hers as he folds her arms over her chest. He takes a moment to breathe, letting the scent of her wash over him, etching its unique signature into his neural pathways. He rocks gently from foot to foot with her cloistered in his arms. She breathes in deep, her head turning to the side and pressing her lips against his throat. His breath catches, and he nuzzles into her temple, returning the chaste kiss.

He walks them backwards to Jane’s armchair, and guides them to sit, his legs bracketing her as he eases them back. He curls his longer body around her, chin hooking over her shoulder. His hands draw up her arms again, trailing lightly over the skin where her t-shirt ends. He continues upwards, palms pressing into her shoulder blades. He can feel the slight abrasion of scar tissue under the fingertips of his left hand, and brushes over it lightly. She tenses for a moment before relaxing again, and Sherlock guides his hands up like a potter at the wheel, running his thumbs up and down the sides of her neck.

She hums contentedly, and he smoothes his hands back down to circle around her wrists. He lifts her left arm and holds it, curling his long fingers around to rest on the underside of her forearm. He cups his other hand around hers, brushing his thumb against hers for a moment before bringing it up and angling it as if holding a bow in their shared grasp.

He takes a deep breath through his nose and positions his fingers against the middle of her wrist.

The note in his head, as he draws their linked hands reverently through the air, is as clear as if he had played it on his violin. It’s crystalline cadence hanging sweetly before swelling in crescendo, his finger rocking back and forth against her skin to sustain the honeyed vibrato.

He exhales along the plane of her collar bone and continues to move his fingers back towards her palm, switching from third position back to first as the phrase dips back into the lower registers, fluttering lightly over grace notes, and adding more vibrato to the semibreve.

It grips him with such an intense melancholy that he has to stop for a moment, hiding his face in the curve of her neck.

“Sherlock?” Jane says, her right hand coming up to twine into his hair. His only response is to curl into her even more. She doesn’t say anything else; she just keeps sifting her fingers through his curls. After a moment she whispers, “I’d like to hear it. What you were playing.”

Sherlock swallows a few times before nodding briefly and lifting his head.

He raises their arms again, and this time, he hums the beginning note tentatively at first just to see how it feels. He finds that it doesn’t hurt as much, so he continues, taking the notes an octave lower to account for his deep voice.

As his fingers dance across her skin, she begins to breathe with him in four-four time. They move together swaying through Bach’s Air on G, the melody swelling around them as if they themselves are the music; existing only as a series of sounds painted on the canvas of silence.

By the time the tremolo fades in the last few bars, Sherlock feels a great deal lighter. He gathers Jane to him as he leans back, reclining some in the chair. They sit there in silence, and Sherlock plays with Jane’s fingers, reveling in her warm weight against him. It’s grounding somehow when a moment ago he felt fit to burst out of his skin.

“Is that what it’s like?” Jane asks sometime later when the fire is all but down to an ambient glow. Sherlock licks his lips.

“What is?” he manages.

She shifts so she could look at him. Her eyes sear into his like a brand, seeing more than he ever could even if he had been looking into a mirror. Instead of answering, she presses her brow into his jaw, her breath unfurling against his skin like a scroll.

They sit there like that until only embers are left in the grate. Jane slowly drifts off in his arms, and he places a hand over her heart. It beats strong in four-four time, and Sherlock begins to hear the faintest strains of a composition weaving in and out of the air, thrumming its soft legato just under his palm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes so a little about my Sherlock headcanon. I believe Sherlock is as volatile as ever and possibly suffers from bouts of melancholy from time to time. The stuff that Sherlock feels is stuff that I experience with my own run ins with depression, and so I only write from what I know. Needless to say this was actually very cathartic for me.
> 
> Also, here is the piece that Sherlock plays: [Bach Air on the G String](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CABX4TiHJfw)


	37. Habits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane makes her own observations on what it's like to live with an eccentric genius.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! It's been forever since I updated 'Afters' and I apologise. The play that I am in opened this week and so rehearsal has been crazy. And I also moved so that was hectic. If you are also following the interim part 'During' then I apologise for the delay in that one as well.
> 
> I hope you like it! I held off on this for so long because I didn't want to detract from the drama when I was wrapping up 'Pursuit of a Greater Thrill.'
> 
> THANKS FOR BEING PATIENT!  
> xxHoney
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [Planetarium](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027801/chapters/2424207) in part five of the series.

_‘You see, Jane, but you do not observe!’_

How many times has she heard that? A hundred, surely. And maybe he was right. She couldn’t deduce how a man clearly just came from lunch at the Dorcester by the spot of raspberry aioli staining his sleeve, or which train a woman came off of based on her recent application of perfume. But she could be observant if she wanted to.

For example, she made it her job to be exceedingly observant when it came to one eccentric consulting detective. 

One of the first things she noticed about the man was that he was a fiddler. He couldn’t sit still even when he retreated into his Mind Palace, fingers tapping against his lips, hands occasionally fluttering as if organsising invisible bits of information. When forced to stand to attention, he always had to have something in his hand, typically his mobile, which is twirled and tossed never missing a beat. It was as if twiddling was a pressure release for the constant revving and whirring of that massive brain. If asked, Jane would swear she could hear the gears clicking into place as he pulled connections out of thin air. It was brilliant, and she always said so, and through this she was delighted to discover another one of Sherlock’s peculiar idiosyncrasies.

_‘Incredible!’_

_blinkblinkblink_

_‘Ahem. Yes well…it’s quite obvious.’_

_‘Not to me. I never understand how you can make those massive leaps. You get it right every time. It’s amazing.’_

_blinkblinkblink_

_‘Ahem.’_

And then…wait for it…the faintest dusting colour would rise to his cheeks, and after another small flurry of blinking, he would divert the conversation onto something else. Sherlock, after all this time, was still caught off guard by her praise, and the fact she alone could make the usually austere detective blush was something she lived for. Frankly, it was adorable, but she would never tell him that in a million years. Besides, she has her own ‘Mind Palace’ and this was just for her, tucked away so she could pull it out and admire it from time to time.

Not all of Sherlock’s quirks were endearing, however.

_‘Sherlock?’_

_‘Mm?’_

_‘We’re out of tea.’_

_‘Apparently.’_

Aggravated sigh.

_‘How many times do I have to tell you to throw the box away when it’s empty?’_

_‘Boring. Waste of time.’_

_‘No, Sherlock. A waste of time is having to go back out to get more because I didn’t know we were out.’_

_‘Mm.’_

Whack!

_‘Really, Jane?’_

_‘You know which tea. You even have the box for reference. Go on.’_

_‘But…’_

Slam!

_‘Jane? Ja – oh. Childish.’_

He was always so wrapped up in his head or in some sort of experiment causing her to constantly repeat herself, or otherwise be completely ignored. He was messy and scatterbrained, usually leaving her in charge of tracking down the things he misplaced. He never did the shopping. He was loud and temperamental, and not to mention bloody destructive on some occasions if the bullet-holes in their wall were anything to go by. All in all, he was rather a nightmare to live with if she were being completely honest.

But when he wasn’t driving her insane with all of his peculiarities, he would ruffle his hair like he does when he’s agitated, or bite his lip when asking for a favour, or flex his long toes against her armchair as he sat across from her, and she would fall in love with him all over again.

And when he sidles up behind her in the middle of the night like he was doing right now, and his breath starts to stir the hair on the back of her neck, she feigns sleep just so she can hear his rumbling snore fill her quiet room. She grins to herself, and tucks this little bit of trivia like a bookmark in between the nuance of voice, and the creases just at his eyes when he laughs, and shuts it away sealed close to her heart with the rest.

Because surely if she were to tell him, he would be scandalised because of all things, the Great Sherlock Holmes is in fact something so mundane as a snorer.


	38. Look Out the Window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovely loves! This marks the return of 'Afters' from whence it has been on hiatus while I've been finishing up the interim and getting ready for the next installment. After I finished up ['During'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1344064/chapters/2802550) I had a few of my lovely supporters request a special 'Afters'. So...this is for my lovely mushu and cricket. I hope you like it!
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [Armistice](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1344064/chapters/3279041) in part six of the series.

“What?” Sherlock says dumbly, his brain not fully caught up to the words on the other end of the line. For a second he is frozen, half way between the kitchen and the sitting room where he has been manically pacing for the last hour.

 _“I said: look out the window,”_ Jane says, a smile in her voice.

And, oh, Sherlock can picture that smile, open and brave and warm, sun shafting through the clouds, and perfect cups of tea. He’s held its nuance at the forefront of his mind in her absence, taking it out when his moods were particularly black, and folding it up as if it were a favour he could tuck into his breast pocket. It’s so dreadfully sentimental of him, but in these long months, he could hardly care.

Baker Street was just a place like any other; just somewhere off the street for the time being, a place to hang his coat. When Jane left, it was like some piece of contentment he found under this roof left with her.

He inhales through his nose when he feels something within the walls themselves fall into place.

In three swift strides he makes it to the window, tearing back the curtain.

 _“Hi,”_ she says, waving up at him from the side of the street, a slow grin blooming on her face. The late September sun highlighted behind her makes it seem as if she is glowing. His heart skips a beat. (Which is utterly preposterous, and in no way possible barring a serious medical condition, but, well.) _“…er, surprise?”_ she says after a moment, her expression faltering to something suddenly unsure.

This seems to do the trick in breaking Sherlock out of his daze, and he abruptly hangs up and darts to the door, taking the steps two at a time. His heart is beating absurdly fast when he reaches the street door, and he rolls his eyes at himself, scrubbing a hand through his tousled hair in order to rein in his nerves. (Another thing that is ridiculous, seeing as how he is Sherlock Holmes, and never gets _nervous_ for Christ’s sake.)

Taking a breath, he exits the flat, pulling the black door of 221 shut behind him.

For a second he just stares at her from the top step unable to keep the smile from spreading across his face. Jane smiles back and the tense uncertainty of before melts from her shoulders. He hops down onto the pavement, hands folded nonchalantly in his trouser pockets, and saunters over to where she is standing, tattered suitcase in hand and obviously here to stay.

“Hello,” he says quietly, eyes drinking her in now that she was up close. Her cheeks were mildly flushed, and her hair was a bit longer from the last time he saw her, framing her face like gold tapestry and blowing lightly in the autumn breeze. The urge to run his fingers through those silky strands is a swift one, and his hand is already breaching the distance before he can stop himself. He changes tack at the last second, and takes hold of her suitcase instead. He swallows, throat clicking due to its sudden dryness. “Did you have a good trip?”

“Yes…” Jane says, and an awkward tension blooms between them.

“Good.” He shuffles on his feet.

“Can we go in?” Jane asks.

“Oh! Yes. Of course…er…” he holds out his hand, letting her lead the way.

He lingers behind her as she reaches the sitting room and stops in the centre, taking it all in. His chest feels lighter just from watching her that he lets the hesitancy drop from him like a mantle, and sets her suitcase down on the floor.

He crosses to her with bated breath, and lightly touches her shoulder. She turns her head, and the lambent light from the window graces off of her smooth cheek.

“Okay?” he intones. She nods, a tremor passing through her. Gently, Sherlock turns her around, hand flowing down her arm until he could loosely clasp her wrist. Her eyes slowly track up to his, and she gives him a resplendent smile.

“I’m just…glad to be back,” she says, voice hitching strangely over the words.

“Yes,” Sherlock says tugging her a little closer trying hard not to come across as demanding. “I’m…er, glad you are too.” He wants to lean in and kiss her, but something sharpens in her gaze that makes him rethink his actions. After the Pool, Sherlock wasn’t sure where they stood with one another, and unlike before where everything was urgent heat and nebulous potential, he wanted to go slow and let Jane make the first move. He settles with giving her wrist another reassuring squeeze, and observes as her expression changes to one of gratitude. He goes to drop his hand, when Jane suddenly catches it, her eyes burning low like kerosene.

She opens her mouth to say something, but can’t seem to find the right words. Instead she frowns at herself, (and oh, Sherlock has missed the small, endearing line that appears between her knitted brows) lips pouting out in annoyance, and pulls him to her. Her head tucks under his chin as if they were made to fit together, and Sherlock wraps his arms comfortably around her shoulders, hands rubbing out the remaining stiffness in her frame.

This was good. They seemed to communicate better this way in the end. Anything that couldn’t be said in beating hearts, shuttered breaths, and gentle caresses wasn’t important. For example: the sigh drifting out across his collar says, _‘I’ve missed you,’_ and her fingers clutching fistfuls of the back of his shirt tell him, _‘Don’t ever let me go.’_

It is everything he needs to know, and he responds the only way he knows how: by holding her even tighter.

After standing like this for a few long moments, Jane sighs once more and leans back to look up at him.

“So…” she says, the faint blush receding from her face. “tell me about the case — this _crême des crêmes_ of cases?"

A grin crackles across Sherlock’s face when he remembers their glorious Ten. (Triple homicide locked room. On a cruise ship! Oh it’s Christmas.) “No time, Jane!” he says whirling around at lightening speed, and donning his Belstaff. “I will tell you what I know in the cab.”

“Wait!” she says, and grabs her suit case. She hauls it up, and dumps it unceremoniously on the sofa, unlatching and throwing back the lid.

“Come on, Jane,” Sherlock grumbles impatiently, the thrill of the game coursing through his veins. “What ever it is can wait.”

“No, this can’t,” Jane says pulling out a crushed paper shopping bag. “Close your eyes.”

He glares, anxiously fluttering in the doorway, but with one look she cuts off his protests and he does what she says. “Hurry, Jane.”

“Just hold your horses,” she says, and Sherlock can hear the rustle of fabric. A moment later, something drops around his neck and he opens his eyes just as Jane is looping a brand new blue scarf through the end and securing it the way he likes. He blinks at her, and she smiles even more brightly than before. “There. It wouldn’t be proper without it.”

Sherlock rubs the fabric between his fingers, admiring the navy blue cashmere. “It’s just like my old one.”

“It is your old one. I got in touch with Alison, and traded her some of my warmest jumpers. She was much obliged to give it back to you. It’s starting to get chilly out, after all.”

“Oh,” he says taken aback. He’s never had anyone go to such lengths for him for something as silly as a scarf. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to buy a new one?”

“Mm, probably,” Jane says, pulling his coat collar up so it stands stiffly on its own. “But it wouldn’t be the same.”

He goes to say something more, but changes his mind, halted in his tracks yet again by the mystery of Jane Watson. He shakes his head a little.

“Now, let's go,” she says clapping her hands together. “The game is on!”

She shoves past him, and he can’t help but throw his head back and laugh.


	39. Bright Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reason for a sock index, and a pair of red knickers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alllll right guys. I know it's been a while for Afters, but it's back! I have missed you all, and in order to kick off the start of Afters for the newest installment 'Fraud, Scandal, and Farce' I have tried to make this an extra fun chapter with the obligatory RED PANTS. Yes I know. Finally. Red Pants Monday. Literally. Here you are, loves, and as always don't be shy with kudos and feedback. You guys stoke my muses that have been rather fickle as of late.
> 
> xxHoney
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter [A Purple Shirt, and Minced Words](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1674830/chapters/3556622)

All things considered, the day could have been worse. In fact, from where Jane's standing, it's actually _terribly_ amusing. To which Sherlock keeps insisting on the contrary.

"It's not _funny,_ Jane," he says for the third time as he disparagingly pulls another wet, white sock out of the washer. Or, what used to be white, according to him.

For a moment, there, Jane had been sure there was an intruder in the flat given the anguished cry Sherlock gave, and she was down the stairs in an instant, recalling at least a dozen techniques to kill an assailant with the ceramic vase in the foyer and her shoelaces, only to find an amusing image of Sherlock's backside waggling back and forth as he dug furiously around in the ancient washing machine.

"PINK!" he had bellowed, confusing her even more.

"Pardon?" she said, glancing at the door to Mrs. Hudson's flat before returning to where Sherlock began to kick the machine with a series of loud, hollow bangs.

"Would you stop! We only have one washer for the whole building, you know," she chastised.

Sherlock chose to ignore her and instead pulled out another garment with a frankly hilarious shriek of despair. To which she promptly began to hold her sides and laugh, and hasn’t been able to stop since.

“Stop, laughing!” Sherlock says for the fourth time as he pulls out another pair of his white briefs with a look of utter despondency.

“They don’t look too bad to me,” Jane says trying to hold in her chuckling. She’s not doing a very good job.

“How would you know?” he snaps. “You’re colourblind!”

This sets Jane off again in hysterics. “Relax. At least it’s just your under-things. It’s not like anything important ended up in there.” She says this just as Sherlock pulls out one of his _Dolce and Gabbana_ shirts out of the machine with a glare in her direction. The tight fitting pearl-grey one he is especially fond of. She purses her lips diffidently. “Oh.”

“Pink!” he wails again. “What in the world is wrong with this thing that causes all of my clothes to turn pink! MRS. HUDSON!” he bellows.

“Christ, Sherlock keep it down,” Jane says, glancing at their landlady’s door again when she remembers. “It’s Saturday; she and Mrs. Turner have Bridge club.”

“Ah!” Sherlock suddenly exclaims not paying attention, and he drops the wet shirt with a _splot_ as he spies something else at the bottom of the washer. “What the blazes is _that?”_ he roars, bum waggling again as he struggles with what ever it was.

“Sherlock,” Jane says, as another one of his socks sails past her head as he launches it over his shoulder. A towel hits her in the face a second later. “Sherlock!”

Sherlock finally straightens, something clutched triumphantly in his fist, and he whirls around to face her. “Explain!” he shouts, a manic gleam in his eye as he stalks towards her.

“What —?”

He cuts her off by unfurling the garment in his hands. They are a dark pair of what appears to be pants — no, _knickers_ — and if she needs any more confirmation on the ownership of those particular knickers, Sherlock presents her with the rear like a banner upon which the word ‘MONDAY’ is branded in bold white letters, confirming that they do indeed belong to her.

“Oh god. Those are the red ones, aren’t they?” Jane says, closing her eyes in mortification. _Well if they said Monday then they were obviously the red ones._

At this, Sherlock turns the knickers over and spots this particular pennant’s Jolly Roger, and his eyebrows fly up into his hairline. Before he can say anything more, Jane snatches it out of his hands and balls it up in her first.

"So it can be assumed that I have _you_ to blame for ruining my clothes?”

“Sherlock. I apologise. I will make sure all of my clothes are out of the washer next time I use it,” Jane says, cheeks flaming, and she turns to flee back up to their flat so she could possibly hide forever in her room and never come out. Ever.

Sherlock, of course, is hot on her heels. “All of my whites are stained pink, but that’s not a problem, is it Jane? Because you have the good fortune of being selectively colourblind, so what does is matter, because, and these are your words, there was nothing _important_ —” Sherlock stops right in the middle of ribbing her, a sudden, wicked gleam in his eye that goes unnoticed by Jane.

“I’m sorry, okay? If you want I’ll buy you a new shirt or something —”

“Jane.”

“ — of course you shouldn’t have put that poncey thing in there in the first place —”

_“Jane.”_

“— besides the fact that dry cleaning would —”

“JANE!”

 _“What?”_ she exasperates, pausing on the small landing, a head above Sherlock. He steps up so he is level to her, and the mischievous look from before translates into a full out wicked grin.

"If those ones say Monday...?" he says, letting the rest of the sentence complete itself as it hangs in the air between them.

Jane frowns, not understanding where he was going with this at first, when the realisation suddenly hits her and she gasps. 

_“No!”_ she says just as Sherlock shoves her into the wall and attempts to leap up the remaining steps before her.

She snarls, and manages to grab onto the back of his suit jacket, pulling herself up behind as he races for the second staircase that leads to her room. For a second, she manages to slow him up, and they jockey for first, Jane nearly shoving him into the airing cupboard before he winds a lanky arm around her waist and bodily swings her around.

"You cheater!" she cries as he laughs and thunders up to the attic bedroom, taking the steps two at a time. _Bloody goddam gazelle._

When she makes it to her room, the great big nuisance is rifling through her underwear drawer with gleeful abandon.

 _"Ah ha!"_ Sherlock exclaims as he pulls out a veritable bouquet of her colored knickers. "You have the whole set!"

"Give them here!" she says marching forward, face quite possibly matching the pair still balled up in her fist.

“Let’s use our powers of deduction, shall we?” Sherlock says, turning his fierce gaze upon her. She knows that look well, and a weary groan leaves her throat.

“Oh _god._ Now you’ve got me wishing for a truly horrifying murder. There is no reasoning with you when you’re bored,” she bemoans. She makes a grab for her underwear, but Sherlock holds her at bay with one lanky arm.

“If ‘Monday’ is _red,”_ he says, running roughshod over her, “and ‘Tuesday’ is this truly hideous shade of orange,” he throws them at her before diving back into her drawer, “then ‘Wednesday’ should be — _ah!_ canary yellow. Obvious.” 

_“Sherlock Holmes,”_ she grits out through clenched teeth and a simmering temper as she stoops to pick up her discarded unmentionables. “There are boundaries…we’ve discussed them, and you are managing to stomp all over them with your _giant_ bloody feet. Now,” she snaps, cramming her things back in the drawer, “get your hands out of my dresser before I smash your fingers so hard you won’t be playing that ruddy violin for _at least_ six weeks.”

Sherlock shoots her a placid glare, then yelps as she makes good on her word and slams the drawer shut, narrowly missing his hand in the process. He looks at her with a scandalised expression that would have been funny had Jane not been so furious.

“Get out, you _bloody_ menace,” she bites.

Instead of taking her threat to heart, Sherlock says, “Why do you have a set of rainbow underwear, Jane?” just to irritate her. It works — especially because he arches that smug eyebrow of his just like a condescending question mark.

“If you must know, my sister gave me the set as a joke. I hardly wear them unless I am out of clothes.”

“A joke,” Sherlock repeats as Jane is bodily manoeuvring him out of her room.

“Yes.” She manages to shove him past the threshold, but just before she can close the door on him, he sticks an aforementioned giant, bloody foot in the frame.

“If they are merely a joke, then why are you wearing a pair now?”

This shocks her out of her righteous anger, and she feels herself flushing all the way up to the roots of her hair.

“I don’t — what?”

He leans in close to her, and the smell of him — dark and spicy, with a hint of orange citrus from the little clementines he is so fond of — derails her for a second. “The thing of it is, Jane,” he says in a low voice directly into her ear. She tries her best not to shiver. “I’m a detective. And do you know what I observed?”

“What?” she says, proud of herself for managing to keep her voice steady.

“ _Saturday_ appears to be curiously absent,” he says, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“All right that’s enough, you pervy bastard,” she says, and shoves him hard in the chest so she can finally slam the door shut.

His laughter rumbles from the other side as he bounds down the stairs, and she has to repress a fond grin in spite of herself. She had to remind herself that she was supposed to be angry with the mad wanker. The man had no sense of boundaries, and had humiliated her to no end. He needed to be put in his place, told that he couldn’t just root around in people’s underwear drawers.

Mustering that familiar indignation, she crams her colourful pants back into her dresser, and marches down stairs, her back straight and shoulders hard, ready for battle.

“ _Sher_ lock,” she says irately as she rounds into the sitting room.

“Jane,” Sherlock drawls from where he was sitting on the sofa, and before she can unleash her prepared lecture, he stretches out his legs, crossing one foot over the other and pointedly plops them down on the coffee table.

She derails for the second time, watching as Sherlock flexes his toes, his shoes having been discarded at some point before she came down.

Jane fixates on them, on the fact that what she is seeing is a mite impossible, especially given this was Sherlock Holmes and he was rarely seen giving in to flights of fancy.

But sure enough, those long toes wiggle again, clad in a pair of bright purple socks. 

Purple socks that conveniently match…

“You knew all along didn’t you? You just wanted to rile me up,” Jane says with a scoff.

“Mm,” Sherlock says shooting a glance at her askance before continuing to stare straight ahead in his patented bored way. By the wily curve of his lips, however, she can tell he was more amused than he let on. “I, like you, have devised a sartorial method which acts as a reminder for me to do laundry. Your underwear, while gauche, provides a logical system that can easily be adapted to fit, say, a sock index, if one were so inclined. I can hardly be arsed to keep track of what day it is, or how many clean shirts I have left, ergo the coordination between colours and the days of the week is a simple, yet effective solution.”

“Is that just your way of saying…during laundry week your socks could be matching my knickers?”

“Yes. Except when you’re in a hurry and get Monday and Tuesday mixed up on occasion,” Sherlock replies, matter-of-fact, fingers laced and resting over his stomach as if they were discussing something so banal as the weather, and aren’t actually having one of the most bizarre conversations of Jane’s life.

That’s it though, really. This conversation is utterly insane, yet she is not surprised in the slightest, and it’s the irony of this that startles a laugh out of her, bright and a little bit wild in its exuberance.

Sherlock cuts a glare in her direction, which is even funnier and she laughs even harder. _“What?”_

“Your…your _socks_ …” she says, breathless. She can’t help but come up to him, and shove his ridiculous stocking-clad feet to the floor before she drops down next to him, a hand over her face as she dissolves into hysterics once more. 

“It’s a very precise system, Jane,” he defends, although he doesn’t sound so sure of the fact any more. He scowls. “Why are you laughing?”

“Sherlock,” she says through her chuckling. “You bought six pairs of socks the colours of the _rainbow_ to match my funny underwear all because you don’t want to have to remember to do laundry like a normal person. Barring the fact that you pay attention to my underwear in the first place — you’re lucky I don’t think you’re creepy and kick your arse, by the way — it’s actually quite hilarious.”

“Normal’s boring,” he says with a sniff, but Jane can see the humour dancing in his eyes as he backtracks through his admittedly eccentric thought process.

“Oh my god, wait a minute!” Jane says sitting bolt upright as a thought occurs to her. She quickly does the maths in her head making sure that, yes, there are only _six_ primary colours that she remembers from primary school, and given this, the default colour of her seventh pair of ‘Sunday’ pants is naturally —

Jane leaps up from her seat, ignoring Sherlock’s alarmed shout as she takes off through the kitchen and towards his bedroom.

“JANE!” he bellows, chasing her, but he’s too late as she is already at Sherlock’s dresser pulling out the neat little bundle of bright. _pink._ socks.

“I _bloody_ knew it!” she crows, and Sherlock snatches the incriminating stockings.

“Shut up,” he says, his cheeks making a valiant effort to coordinate with the fuchsia atrocities in his hands.

“You have pink and purple socks you wear on Saturdays and Sundays —”

“Not every Saturday and Sunday —”

“— oh Jesus, you have a bloody sock _index_ for crying out loud —”

“It’s a system I told you —”

“I don’t care if you’re doing laundry or not, promise me you will wear these on Sundays regardless,” Jane says suddenly, completely besotted with Sherlock’s frivolous socks, and the barmy yet charming way he goes about something as mundane as washing his clothes.

She can see the derision by the way his nose crinkles up as if smelling something foul, but his eyes flicker over her a second time, and the disdain turns into puzzlement.

“You’re serious,” he says.

“Like a heart attack,” she rejoins, challenging him with a wry arch of her eyebrows.

Sherlock narrows his eyes. “On one condition.”

“What?”

“You wear yours as well.”

“Done,” she says, and Sherlock’s smirk fades, not expecting her to readily agree to the terms. “I’ll even wear the red ones on Mondays because I can tell you like them,” she says cheekily.

It’s Sherlock’s turn to blush again, and he does that fluttery blinking thing that means she broke his brain a little. It’s adorable, and in that moment she knows she would probably don all of her tacky knickers if he were to ask. There’s nothing for it, and with a fond chuckle she tilts his head so she can kiss his brow that’s gone all scrunched and scowl-y.

“We’ll call it a Study in Pink,” she says, and laughs again when he groans piteously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to post this on Monday, but I am shite at deadlines apparently...Thanks for reading loves. <3


	40. Adjustment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock would do to listen to his doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a schmoopy chapter for you. Basically I love the image of Sherlock being a cat. I can't get enough of it so yeah. Be on the look out for the next 'Afters'! I am really excited about it! I LOVE YOU ALL. xxHoney
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Adagio'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1674830/chapters/4262037) in part seven of the series.

Sherlock glares down into his microscope. There was something incongruous about this particular soil sample, but no matter how hard he looked, no matter how many samples he stuck under the slide, there was a certain component that he couldn’t identify. It was organic, but it most definitely didn’t belong in soil.

Without tearing his eyes away, he ruffles the hair on his head in agitation, growling unintelligibly under his breath.

“You should take a break,” Jane says from the sitting room in a tone of voice that suggests she’s made this comment previously. Sherlock startles, having blocked out her presence. He tries to ignore her again, but she isn’t having it apparently. “Sherlock.”

“Can’t. Case. Suspect… _bloody soil_ …” he bites, adjusting the focus. Again.

Sherlock hears the rustle of the newspaper as Jane gets to her feet. She comes to stand beside him, a hand on his opposite hip as she leans over and looks at the scattering of slides on the table.

“I could take a look if you would like,” Jane says. Sherlock makes an agitated sound in the back of his throat, and shifts minutely. She huffs a small laugh, taking the hint, and moves out of his space. He uncoils his shoulders a little in relief, not realising he had bound himself so tight at her proximity. (God, he was on edge.) 

“You’re on edge,” Jane remarks, and Sherlock scowls even harder into the eyepieces. “At least take a moment and drink the tea I am making you, yeah?”

He grumbles again, but doesn’t protest as she flicks on the electric kettle. Irritated, he exchanges the current slide with another one without even lifting his head, scratching idly at the back of his neck. (What the hell _was that?_ ) He hardly notices when Jane slides a cup of tea next to his elbow.

“Perhaps some biscuits, too?” Jane says, taking the stool across from his at their cluttered kitchen table. Sherlock grits his teeth. “Some of those nice chocolate ones, or perhaps some custard creams?”

“Jane. I am trying to _focus,_ ” Sherlock snarls.

“You’re running in circles. I know that much,” Jane says. He doesn’t look up but he can feel the look she’s giving him. It’s irritating. “You’ll feel loads better if you step away for a moment.”

Sherlock’s patience snaps and he slams a hand down onto the table, upsetting his tea in the process. He allows himself to cut a harsh glare in Jane’s direction, barely containing the fury pressing against the backs of his teeth. Jane raises her eyebrows in surprise before her expression settles into a challenging scowl. She presses her lips into an irate line and after a moment, throws up her hands in bitter surrender. Sherlock sniffs, and looks back into the scope.

Jane lets out a terse breath, and gets up to get a towel. The cuff of Sherlock’s sleeve is damp, but he can hardly be bothered to care. Jane bumps him as she cleans up the small puddle, (out of spite, he’s sure) whisking away the cup with a muttered,

“Something stronger than tea, I should think.”

Sherlock ignores her as she goes about messing with the coffee press. Or tries to ignore her, seeing as how she is making an awful lot of noise just to be contrary. (And they call _him_ the insufferable one? Honestly.) 

He’s just about to switch out another slide when Jane curses avidly, and his eyes dart up just in time to see her knock the bag of coffee grounds all over the floor.

“Coffee…” Sherlock says, drawing out the word as the tumblers in his mind slot into place. (Of course! Coffee grounds in the potting soil! Idiot.) Elated, Sherlock snaps his head up in order to crow out his triumph, only to be suddenly struck dumb when a searing pain races up his neck. He sucks the air through his teeth, sharp and fast, and blinks hard a couple of times to dispel the spots in his vision. He must have made a noise of some sort, because Jane is looking up at him from her position on the floor with a frown.

Sherlock pretends not to notice, and gingerly reaches for his mobile so he could text Lestrade and tell him it was the barista. But even that small amount of movement causes him to have to lift his shoulder, and all at once the burning pain seizes him in its vice.

Jane gets to her feet and appraises him with a clinical eye, hands fisted on her hips. He tires to meet her gaze with a nonchalant lilt of his eyebrows, but his arm is sticking out at an awkward angle, half way between reaching for his mobile and frozen in fear of aggravating the pain sparking down the length of his spine. It’s not very convincing.

Jane narrows her gaze for a moment before the realisation dawns on her. She rolls her eyes, and huffs out an exasperated breath that sounds more amused than it ought to be.

“You are an idiot,” Jane says, and grabs his mobile. “What do you need me to tell him, then?”

Sherlock grits his teeth for the second time. (Any harder and he'll do permanent damage to the enamel, he's certain.) “I am perfectly capable of texting Lestrade myself, thank you.”

“Oh? Well, if you're sure…” Jane holds the phone out to him for him to take, lofting it just a bit higher than his protesting muscles will allow. She smirks when he tries again, a painful groan sticking in his throat. “That’s what I thought, you git. Now: about the case?”

“Tell him that it was the barista,” Sherlock clips in resignation, slowly lowering his arm by his side. He tries to turn his head, but that proves to be a terrible idea, and this time he can’t quite stop the wrought moan from escaping. Jane’s smug expression fades into genuine concern at this, and Sherlock grimaces.

“There. Sent. Maybe next time you will listen to me when I tell you being hunched over your microscope for three straight hours isn’t good for you,” she says setting his phone back on the table. “Come on.”

Sherlock looks disdainfully down at her outstretched hand, but he takes it regardless and lets himself be led to the sofa. He sits woodenly, back ramrod straight, trying not to move his head or shoulders.

Jane assesses him for a moment more, doctorly scrutiny in place before she sighs and steps up onto the coffee table. Sherlock blinks, and follows her with his eyes as she then proceeds to step onto the sofa next to him.

“I thought climbing all over the furniture was barbaric,” Sherlock remarks.

“Only when you do it,” Jane says. She carefully shimmies in behind him, perching on the back of the sofa with her legs on either side of his arms. He’s about to ask what she’s up to, when she suddenly digs her thumbs into the back of his neck. The yelp he gives is rather undignified, and he immediately tries to pull away. “Wait! It’ll get better in a second.” She pulls him back to rest against her shins.

“I’m fine, really. And I highly doubt you are qualified to — _ah-aa!”_

Jane starts in again, pressing her palms into the apex where his shoulders meet the base of his neck, and kneads the taut muscle.

In a word: it’s torture, and his hands clamp around her ankles, nearly unseating her in the process.

“Oi! Be still!”

“That bloody hurts!” Sherlock growls.

“It’s your own fault, and it will hurt a lot more if you don’t let me just…” Jane trails off, her hands sweeping back up to his aching neck and — _oh._

“Oh,” he says aloud, the hot relief dripping into him like candle wax, burning and soothing all at once. She chuckles softly, and works her fingers over the knobs of his spine. “Ohh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh,’” she says, and he all but melts against her as she continues to coax his unwilling muscles into pliancy. Jane's hands are warm and astute, seeking out every obstinate knot and snarl, leaving him a veritable puddle in her arms. His head comes to rest in the centre of her chest, and Jane threads her fingers into his hair, grabbing fistfuls and tugging gently. The alternating sensation of tightening and loosening of his scalp causes gooseflesh to break out along his arms in the most delicious way, and he can’t help but rumble his approval.

Jane laughs, and she dips her face down to rest her lips on the crown of his head. Her thumbs make little circles behind his ears right over his mastoid process.

“Thissis real’good. What you’reddoing…with um…fingers…” Sherlock slurs, his eyelids drooping of their own volition.

“I’m glad you approve,” Jane says, her voice a low burr. “Maybe next time you will listen to your doctor.”

“Mm. M’doctor,” Sherlock says. He thinks he should really get up and text Lestrade so he could make sure that imbecile Anderson didn’t forget to confiscate the barista’s potted plants-- but then Jane starts humming softly under her breath, and before he can do anything else, he drops off into sleep.


	41. On the Architecture of the Column

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock: from the ground up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. SO this is what happens when I let my Sherlock headcanons run away from me. They become entities unto themselves. So yes.
> 
> **EDIT : There will not be a part two of this chapter, b/c the rest of the back story is more suited for the main arc. Sorry for psyching some of you out!! ** 
> 
> xxHoney
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Adagio'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1674830/chapters/4262037) in part seven of the series.

The earliest memory Sherlock can recall about his mother is the look of pinched irritation on her face.

He was three and Mycroft was ten, and he was crying and crying because the pain in his ear was sharp and terrible, and he was running a fever that made him sick to his stomach.

His mother was at her writing desk, scribbling furiously in her notebook before she couldn’t block out his wretched tears any more, and slammed her hand down on the work top in frustration.

“Myc. Take your brother to the nursery. I can’t possibly _think_ with all of his carryings-on,” she snapped. Sherlock remembers her tugging the gold-rimmed glasses off her face to hang loosely around her neck on a beaded chain. It distracted him from his misery for a moment, the way the light caught the frames.

Mycroft crouched down in front of him, his eyes flickering over his face, and Sherlock pawed at his ear, once again reminded of the hot burning sensation.

“Mycof!” he whimpered, trying to get him to understand. _Nobody_ was listening to him.

“Mummy, I think William has an ear infection,” Mycroft said as he lifted Sherlock into his arms.

“Oh, my god. Again, William?” his mother said, and Sherlock hid his face in the side of Mycroft’s neck, sobbing again in earnest. “Out! Take him out, Mycroft. I can’t… _deal_ with this right now.”

Later, after the fever died down and the stabbing pain was lessened to a dull throb, Sherlock crept out of bed and down the hall to where his mother and father were arguing.

“I’ll just have to give up my fellowship.”

“Come, now Violet. I’m sure there’s a way.”

“Oh be sensible! You’re hardly going to stay home and look after him and see him through his formative years, are you?”

“You don’t have to say it like that, Vi.”

“Like what, Siger?”

“Like having him was a curse.”

“It’s not. Of course it’s not. But we only planned on the one, didn’t we?”

Sherlock wasn’t sure what all of it meant at the time, but when he looks back on it later — the dozens of memories of his mother’s voice full of strife, and his father’s face creased with weary concern — he can trace the start of their disappointment back to this point in time.

…

Sherlock was a vivacious child with an insatiable curiosity. There was always something to experiment on, things to dig up in the garden, places to explore. Often times he was much too curious for his own good. He was destructive without consciously meaning to be, much to the exasperation of his parents, but his grandfather was one of the few people who encouraged his appetite for knowledge, especially when it came to things of the artistic nature. He gave him his first violin at the age of six, much to the disdain of his mother who hardly had the patience for such things she deemed ‘trivial.’

That was the curx of their relationship, really — this certain bitterness between mother and son that tainted everything he did in her eyes. She never let him forget the _sacrifices_ she made in order to do what was best and ‘rear him properly,’ and no matter what, he never seemed to win her favour: unlike Mycroft who was the golden child.

When he finally realised this, he began to devise other ways of getting her attention.

“William Sherlock Scott Holmes! You get down here right now and get that thing off the dog before he makes a mess of the carpet! Making a tea tray out of the dog, honestly!”

“Redbeard doesn’t mind, Mother.”

“Oh, William! He’s gone and shaken himself, and now all of my baking flour has spilled everywhere. You are grounded, young man, and I want you outside so you can give that mangy thing a bath.”

As far as punishments went, it was rather mild. And in the long run, it got her to acknowledge him if only for a little while, before she went back to working on her second manuscript.

…

For the most part, Sherlock didn’t mind being different. In fact, he wore his eccentricity around like a mantle. Secretly, Mycroft and he were alike in this respect, but his brother was never proud of the fact and tried his hardest to blend into society as a figure of influence more than anything.

Sherlock never concerned himself with tamping down his inquisitive nature until he started going to school, and realised for the first time just how strange he really was.

He learnt more about cruelty than any subject combined, and learnt how to close himself off to hateful words, and how to be like a mirror, deflecting invective sharper than a double-edged sword.

He became so good at this — this _not feeling_ — that when Redbeard died, he didn’t remember what it felt like to feel anything other than cold numbness.

Mycroft, damn him, knew better and took Sherlock’s caustic silence for what it was. His hand felt like a corpse when it came to rest on his shoulder as their father explained to them why they had to put the dog down.

The look of pity cast in his direction was enough to stir up his dormant anger in that moment, and he threw Mycroft’s hand off of him.

“Who cares? He’s just a bloody _dog,”_ Sherlock snapped, and turned tail and ran off into the garden where no one could see him cry.

…

Sherlock would say that by the time he turned sixteen, he had mastered the art of ridding himself of paltry things such as emotion and empathy. Words like _freak_ and _psycho_ and _sociopath_ only encouraged him to shape this careful persona concocted with slanderous wit, and cutting logic.

He would say that he was impenetrable, but deep down it was a lie.

“I don’t know what to do with him, Dad,” his mother’s worried voice carried down the hall. “He won’t listen to me, or his father. He just…shuts down.”

Sherlock grimaced, picturing his grandfather’s resigned tone on the other end. No doubt he would catch the next train to London so he could sort him out. Well, he had no interest in being ‘sorted out.’ As if Sherlock needed to be handled or _fixed_ somehow. He didn’t want to be fixed, and he definitely didn’t want to hear what anyone had to say.

The next morning he planned on slipping out of the house early, and he spent the whole day sneaking into various museums, and making a game out of deducing different people in Trafalgar Square.

He didn’t make it home until late the next day, hiding out in the tree at the end of the driveway so he could watch as his grandfather got into a cab on his way to the train station. Before he ducked inside, he paused, wizened eyes Sherlock knew were the same colour as his, lighting briefly on his hiding spot. For a moment, it almost seemed as if he knew Sherlock was there, but after one last sad shake of his head, his grandfather got in and departed into the night.

It was the last time he saw his grandfather alive.

At the funeral, he was left almost blindsided by shock, and no matter how many times they told him his grandfather died due to an undetected heart murmur, Sherlock couldn’t shake the feeling he was to blame for his death.

Because, the thing of it was, that night when he sneaked back into the house and into his bedroom, there was a letter waiting for him on his pillow. It was a simple one, only two sentences that permanently branded themselves into his memory. It read:

_My dear boy. You are breaking my heart._

He looked down at the gravestone, those words pounding against his skull, and traced a finger over his grandfather’s name etched deep into the marble: _William Edgar Sherrinford._

Sherlock did this. He knew he did.

After that day he swore off attachment, vowing to never be trapped in that place of abject guilt again. Because if he cared for people, he was giving them the power to destroy him.

After that day he stopped going by William.

…

Sherlock needed to _get out._

He couldn’t stand being trapped under his parents’ roof anymore, and he vehemently refused the offer to go live with Mycroft during the summer of his eighteenth year.

So, with a single-minded determination, he devoted every fibre of his being into getting into University. He thought about skipping the Uni lark all together — after all, what could they possibly teach him that he hadn’t already taught himself? But the trust his grandfather left him had hateful stipulations. One of them being that it didn’t kick in until he was twenty-one, and the other that he ‘make something of himself.’ So Cambridge it was.

It was dull. Horribly, utterly, depressingly _dull._ And he was half out of his mind with boredom by the end of his second year, as well as on precarious grounds for being expelled. The only reason he wasn’t, especially after he set fire to the chemistry lab (again), was due to Mycroft’s affluence no doubt. He couldn’t bear to let Sherlock disappoint Mummy and Father yet again, and due the fact he was MI5’s newest ‘rising protégé’, he was able to persuade the Dean into letting Sherlock stay by way of several generous donations. He probably should have had a wing dedicated to him, at the very least for all Sherlock cost him.

He was so full of snapping vitriolic langour that had it not been for the conditions on his trust, he would have refused to return for his third year.

In fact, it was when he was cutting across campus contemplating the best way to _hang himself with his own bloody necktie,_ that the universe seemingly sensed his desperation and decided to drive something interesting into his path for once.

Of course, at the time he didn’t find the menacing bull terrier latching onto his ankle very interesting.

But the universe was funny that way, and when the owner of the blasted mutt retrieved his dog — named Rasputin of all things — and then proceeded to introduce himself as

“Victor. Victor Trevor.”

with a genuine smile after actually laughing at some sarcastic comment Sherlock said…well. He must have had a minor stroke to let this Victor escort him back to his dormitory.

“So you’ve a single, huh?” Victor asked, looking around Sherlock’s room.

“I detest people,” Sherlock said simply. And Victor laughed again, his wild auburn hair falling into his face as he bowed his shoulders and shook his head.

“Amen to that. Listen, you sure you’ll be all right?”

“Yes. Fine,” Sherlock said, feeling a little off kilter at Victor’s open laugh. It caused a strange flutter in his facial muscles that could almost be persuaded into an actual smile, instead of his usual ironic scythe of a smirk. It was irritating. “Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” Victor asked, blinking his green eyes in amusement, that crooked grin still in place.

“You _artists_ are all the same. You cultivate your charisma like a plant in a greenhouse because you have to maintain a certain level aesthetic, even in regards to yourself. Well I’m telling you, your unassuming good-nature won’t work on me. After all, I did threaten to murder your dog several times on the way over, and it doesn’t take a genius to deduce that I am not what you might call the social type. So, either get to the point of why you insist on being here, or leave,” Sherlock snarled.

“How did you know I’m an artist?” said Victor.

“Please,” Sherlock scoffed, and hobbled over to his music stand. He whipped his bow out, and wielded it like a pointer. “You have a callous on your right middle finger belying where you hold your pencil when you draw. I say pencil and not paint brush, because you have a few smudges of graphite on your sleeve and the side of your palm. So, artist who’s medium is pencil.” And then because he couldn’t’ resist showing off, Sherlock said, “What kind of artist, then? You don’t strike me as the type to sketch romantic portraits of nature, and people don’t really fascinate you all that much. Architect, then.”

Victor’s affable smile fell of his face, and he reeled back a little. “Are you spying on me? Are you working for Milverton?” he demanded.

“I haven’t the slightest idea who this Milverton person is,” Sherlock sniffed. “I simply observed.”

“How could you have possibly known I’m studying to be an architect, then?”

“Stab in the dark, that,” Sherlock said with an arrogant smirk, “but a good one. Based on the clean lines you favour sartorially — your tie is almost irritatingly symmetrical, and you keep adjusting your cuffs to make sure the buttons are in their place on the outsides of your wrists — and the fact you have a small cut on your thumb, most likely from a metal ruler. Well, it’s not a difficult leap.”

Sherlock finished his deductions with a bland arch of his eyebrow, and relished the look of slack-jawed amazement on Victor’s face. After a moment, Victor blinked, and a slow smirk spread across his face.

“Mate, you are gonna have to teach me how you do that.”

“And why would I do such a thing?” Sherlock answered waspishly.

“Because,” Victor said, his hand reaching into his breast pocket. He pulled out a small packet of gleaming white powder, and held it up in front of him. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

Oh yes. The universe was proving to be very interesting indeed.

He hesitated only for a moment, a flash of his grandfather's disappointed face causing him to stop. It was brief, however, and like all things, Sherlock pushed it aside and threw caution to the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also! The 2nd of August marked the first year anniversary of 'The Colour of Light!' Wow I can't believe it's been a year! I have come far, and met wonderful people, and I hope I can continue to inspire. Love you all, Honey.


	42. Cluedo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's all fun and games until someone gets murdered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray for an Afters update, guys! This one was fun to write, and part of the idea I actually got from my bf, so credit belongs to him. I could totally see Sherlock doing this. Thank you all who have kept up with these two. They are like my children, and getting to know you all through them has been more than I could have asked for. Bless.
> 
> xxHoney
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Breaching Distance'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1674830/chapters/4929219) in part seven of the 'Colour of Light.'

Jane finds the innocuous stack of board games in the middle of a sudden attack of deep cleaning the flat.

Really, there’s nothing strange about a collection of games such as Parcheesi, Battleship, Operation, and Backgammon collecting dust in the top of one’s hall closet, but the simple fact that these are clearly _Sherlock’s_ board games is enough to make her seriously consider the possibility she ended up in bloody Narnia. In fact, just to be sure, she calls out to her mad flatmate.

“Sherlock? You’re not having tea with a faun, are you?”

There’s a beat before the sound of a blowtorch abruptly cuts off, followed by an incriminating silence. Jane can picture Sherlock’s disgruntled frown behind his ridiculous plastic goggles as he tries to parse Jane’s obscure reference to pop culture children’s literature.

“What in the bloody hell are you going on about?” Sherlock shouts back right on cue.

“That’s what I thought,” Jane says ruefully to herself. She puts her hands on her hips, contemplating whether or not she should put these in the box she’s set aside for the charity shop.

“Your nonsensical babble is really quite annoying, Jane,” Sherlock calls from the kitchen. The sound of one of the stools can be heard scraping along the tile, followed by bare feet slapping against the floor in a truly irritated fashion. “I am in the middle of a critical experiment, and you banging around the flat like some sort of Neanderthal is really —” he stops in the doorway, a look of confusion crossing his face. His goggles are pushed up onto his head causing his hair to stick up in little tufts making him look like a large, agitated bird. “I didn’t know we had a storage cupboard.”

“Right, because you deleted it. _Again,_ you utter berk,” Jane sighs. “How many times do I have to tell you not to delete necessary rooms in our flat?”

“Is this room necessary?” Sherlock murmurs, bemused, as he peers into the dusty depths of the cupboard.

“Yes,” Jane says, dropping the well-worn argument. “Since you’re here, can you tell me where these came from?”

Sherlock’s gaze lights on the stack of board games, and he frowns again, an odd expression on his face that Jane doesn’t have a name for. “They’re mine.”

“Yes, I figured,” Jane says, watching as he reaches a hand out and brushes over the iconic red box of Operation. She has a snarky rejoinder at the ready, but she hesitates when she looks at him. He smirks to himself, and suddenly, Jane recognises the expression for what it is: one of fond nostalgia. 

The image of a child Sherlock is something she can’t picture, let alone a Sherlock playing board games with…with…? Who would he have played these with? Sherlock glances at her knowingly.

“Operation was one of the few games Mycroft always lost at,” he says with a cruel smile. “I blame it on his fat fingers.”

Jane tries to gather he jaw off the floor. “You played these with _Mycroft?”_ If she thought it impossible to picture Sherlock devoting himself to something so frivolous at board games, the image of Mycroft stooping to such plebian levels was absolutely beyond her.

“Of course. Who else would I have played with?” Sherlock says. He tries to keep his tone aloof, but Jane can hear the defensive undercurrent as if he was daring her to comment on his remarkably lonely childhood. 

Donovan’s sneering face comes to mind just then, her features twisting into something cruel and ugly whenever she spits the word _‘freak.’_ Jane swallows back the bitter taste in her mouth. She can’t help the sudden desire of hers to travel back in time and befriend this isolated boy before he became cynical and jaded with the world. Before he was hurt and chastised by people who couldn’t label or explain him.

Instead she says, “Which one was your favourite?”

His eyes glint wickedly, and Jane has a feeling she is somehow going to regret this.

…

An hour later, and Jane was trying her hardest not to lose her temper, because _of course_ Sherlock’s favourite game is Cluedo, and _of course_ he throws the biggest tantrum if there is even the slightest chance that someone might be better at it than he is.

Round three, and they are back to arguing over the solution, yet again.

“It has to be in the library! There are no rooms left, Sherlock! Now just let me look in the bloody envelope!”

“It’s not in the library, Jane! It can’t be, because why in the world would a lead pipe be in a library?”

“I have the lead pipe, Sherlock. Ergo, that’s not the murder weapon,” she deadpans.

“You have the lead pipe? _How?”_ he yells incredulously.

“Remember when I dealt the cards? That’s how!” she rages back. “You would know if you only asked me.”

“I didn’t need to ask; I already deduced the weapon from the start,” Sherlock sniffs.

“Well, _obviously_ you deduced wrong,” Jane says through gritted teeth. “Now give me the envelope!” 

“Now you’ve shown your hand, I know the answer,” Sherlock says haughtily. Jane snatches the yellow confidential folder out of his grasp.

“Good for you, but it’s my turn now, so shut up,” she growls, and opens the envelope. She pulls out the cards, smiling when the top one is the library like she said. “See?” Sherlock rolls his eyes, flopping back in his armchair like a petulant five-year-old. She looks at the next card, which was the revolver like she also guessed, but frowns. “Sherlock. Where’s the third card?”

“It’s probably still in there,” he pouts, arms crossed over his chest as he glares into the fireplace.

Jane peers into the envelope, and instead of another card, there is a folded slip of paper. She digs it out, and reads the handwritten scrawl:

_Murder by suicide._

“What is this?”

“Mm?” Sherlock says, leaning forward so he could take a look. “Suicide! I knew it!”

“No…Sherlock where’s the suspect card?”

“That is the suspect card,” he states as if she is being particularly daft.

“The _proper_ suspect card, you tosser!” she says, nearly exploding.

“Oh. Boring,” he shrugs. “Anyway. Because you deduced wrong that means I automatically win.”

“No, that’s not how it works, because you bloody cheated!” Jane says. “You can’t just make up new cards.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s the rules!”

“It doesn’t say explicitly that you cannot add weapons and rooms and suspects in order to make the game more _fun._ It’s a game. Games are supposed to be fun. Besides, it’s heinously tedious with only two people,” Sherlock argues.

“You do know it defeats the purpose of the game when you have the victim kill himself, right?” Jane says.

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Yes, it bloody well does. Especially if you are adding things without telling everybody else. Wait…did you say you added rooms? There are only nine rooms on the board. How do you manage that?”

“Oh come on, Jane. Think! The secret passages, of course,” he says impatiently.

“Secret passages. What, you mean from the corners?”

“Yes. Secret passages. Honestly, it is the most ideal place to stumble across a body in a house like this. Although ‘stumble’ should be used loosely. You would probably notice the smell first.”

Jane stares at him, poleaxed. He took this so seriously, looking somehow condescending in his tatty pyjamas and unruly mop of hair, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or scream at his pedantry. Her amusement eventually outweighs her want to strangle him, and she tilts her head, giving the hidden stairwell a second look. 

“That…actually makes a lot of sense,” she concedes.

“Yes,” Sherlock says, eyes bright. “ _Especially_ given the belladonna is in the conservatory. Ideal for poisoning.”

Jane shakes her head, a laugh suddenly bursting out of her. “You mad thing.”

Sherlock mistakes her tone, and he blinks affronted. Before he can open his mouth and launch into what is no doubt a lengthy lecture on the properties of belladonna, Jane grabs the lapel of his dressing grown and pulls him forward, upsetting the board.

“You mad, mad thing,” she whispers, and kisses him soundly on the lips.

Sherlock catches on finally, and melts into her, hand coming up to thread into her hair. He chuckles, pulling back slightly.

“Want to play again?”


	43. A Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time; an abstract.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, guys. It's been much too long. I apologise. This little series is giving me a bit of a headache to be honest. Currently, my adaptation to ASiB is giving me more trouble than I think I was anticipating. And therefore, 'Afters' suffers the lack of singing muses as well. But! I still love my babies, and THIS WILL GET WRITTEN EVEN IT IT KILLS ME. So...without further ado: this chapter!
> 
> xxHoney
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Breaching Distance'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1674830/chapters/4929219) in part seven of the series.

They tell you time is quantifiable. That there are sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, twenty-four hours in a day. From there, there are seven days in a week, four weeks in a month, and fifty-two weeks in a year — according to the Gregorian calendar give or take the factor of Leap Years. 

There are many ways to classify time. For instance, Sherlock knows Jane will be home _soon_ given her partial shift at the surgery. And it’s _not long_ when Sherlock’s mobile chimes with a text. She tells him she will be stopping by the Tesco’s on the way back for milk, to which she tells him she will _see him in a few._

Though abstract, Sherlock takes all of these to mean that the time between now and when these things come to fruition is a short amount, and could possibly be whittled down to the minutes and seconds, and even milliseconds if one were so inclined. 

The mechanics of time remain absolute, (as in sixty seconds must proceed one minute, and sixty minutes must proceed one hour et cetera, et cetera) and like a metronome, it is comforting in its solidarity. Sherlock knows that he can set the timer on a specific chemical solution, and in precisely seventeen-point-three minutes can achieve the same result every single time. Or that a time of death can be determined within several degrees of accuracy based on how much time it takes for a body to achieve various stages of rigor mortis.

Sherlock has studied the effects of time in this way, and though the concept of time itself is as abstract as you can get, the laws are immutable.

That is why, as much as it pains him to admit, Sherlock is constantly perturbed by the _relativity_ of time. Nothing so scientific as Einstein, but more so in how time is relative to _him._

For example: _a while_ can seem like it’s dragging out indefinitely, almost to the point of _forever_ when it has only been a few hours between experiments, or a few days since his last case. It is utterly maddening particularly when the boredom sinks its teeth in, but even so, this too is something Sherlock can define. But for all of time’s nuances, there remains one that has eluded Sherlock from the start.

Simply…how does one ever define _a moment?_

Most moments happen instantaneously as in _right that moment_ or perhaps, _it was only a moment before…_

But then again, _momentarily_ and _in a moment_ are ambiguous to a frustrating degree and can last an indeterminable amount of time.

A moment can be the beat of a heart, the bat of an eyelash. Or it can be a small eternity.

A moment can be forever.

For instance, it takes only a moment for Jane’s foot to catch a slick patch on the rooftop they are both running across in pursuit of a suspect, and only a moment for Sherlock to register the sharp cry that follows.

When Sherlock whips towards the sound, he’s just able to catch a glimpse of Jane’s coat flaring out like wings as she tumbles over the side.

It is only a moment, however

the terror roaring through him is endless.

Somehow through the chaos and confusion pounding through him, his feet carry him closer to the ledge. His entire body is numb and there is a shrill whistle in his ears that has nothing to do with the wind.

Sherlock halts just before the ledge, panic cementing him in place. He can’t make himself look over the side just yet, the nightmare of what he just witnessed surreal and intangible like nightmares typically are. Jane was just _gone._ This fact thunders through him, propelling him into action. He fumbles for his phone with numb fingers, dialing Lestrade on speed dial. 

_“Sherlock, where the bloody hell are you?”_ Lestrade snaps at him through the line. He’s yelling, Sherlock knows he is, but he sounds far away.

“Lestrade,” he forces himself to say. “Ambulance. Grant and high Street. She-she fell.” He hardly recognises the sound of his own voice as it grates past his vocal chords.

_“What? Shit, Sherlock what happened? Are you hurt? Is Jane hurt?”_

Sherlock sucks in a gasp and tears the phone away from his face, dropping it on the concrete as he collapses to his knees. He feels something ripping inside of him, feels himself wanting to shut down. He doesn’t want to look over the edge. He doesn’t want to see —

Shaking his head, he throws himself forward, clutching the two-foot lip of the rooftop, fingertips scraping against the rough brick. He wrenches his eyes open, forcing himself to _look._

A traitorous sob rattles past his lips when he sees the dark structure of a fire escape only about ten feet down, and Jane, unconscious, but most definitely alive, splayed out on the metal grating.

The air rushes back into his lungs making him dizzy, and he scrambles to his feet, his eyes fastening onto the iron ladder he didn’t see before.

“Jane!” he croaks out, and swings his leg over the ledge without a second thought to how high he is. “Jane! God, wake up, Jane!”

On watery legs, he makes it down the rungs of the ladder, and all but collapses again next to her.

She’s crumpled on her right side, arm bent awkwardly beneath her, but she’s breathing, and Sherlock feels sick with relief. He wants to touch her, make sure her heart really is still beating, but he hesitates, hands hovering over her for a moment. He can feel the warmth radiating from her body, and being as delicate as he can, he rolls her gently onto her back in case she’s been injured somewhere else.

“Jane,” he whispers, gingerly brushing the hair away from her face. His fingers come away tacky with blood from where she hit her head, but other than that, she looks to be all right.

The breath pours out of his lungs, and he crouches over her like a shield to keep her warm, his greatcoat shrouding them both against the harsh wind. He supports himself on his forearms, hands coming to either side of her head, and he can’t help but tangle his fingers in her hair and cradle the back of her skull, surreptitiously feeling for fractures in the process. Her eyes flicker weakly under her pale lids, and Sherlock presses his cheek against hers. Her name leaves his trembling lips and he suddenly can’t seem to stop, the word becoming a mantra. A benediction. A _plea._

Sherlock can hear the ambulance in the distance, and Jane stirs faintly beneath him. Overwhelmed, he squeezes his eyes shut, pressing around her even more. He bows his head to her throat and touches his lips to her pulse so he can feel it humming against his skin — proof that he hadn’t lost her this time.

A warm hand tentatively cups the back of his head, thumb drawing circles across his occipital bone, and he stills. The fingers thread through his hair more firmly holding him to her, and the fear and tension finally floods out of him like a sieve. He lowers himself fully into her embrace, his face still buried in the curve of her neck.

“S’okay, love,” she murmurs. “You caught me.”

Sherlock chokes out a laugh because he most definitely did not catch her, but he’s not about to argue when she strokes the back of his neck with a tenderness that makes him ache. As if he’s the one who was lying here cold and hurt.

 _“You caught me,”_ she says again, kissing his temple. He breathes in her scent, the smell of apple blossoms and the tang of blood oddly soothing. He breathes again, his sense of time spiraling away from him.

In a moment, Lestrade will turn down the alley and find them cloistered together on the rusty fire escape, barking orders into his radio.

In a moment, there will be flashing lights, police tape, and paramedics, and statements, and questions, and a taxi ride back to Baker Street because Jane will refuse the ambulance like she always does.

And in a moment, Sherlock will lift his head so he can look into Jane’s incandescent eyes. 

London will go on around them indifferent to the many lives that inhabit it like always, and in a moment, their lives will continue on, too. 

In a moment...

But for now, a small _eternity_ exists between their shared breaths, to which Sherlock finds halcyon quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS You guys are amazing. <3


	44. BONUS -- Ides of March

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There will always be one mystery Sherlock will never understand -- Women.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello you guys! Sorry it has taken me forever to update! Battling a few health issues atm as well as trying to stay on top of my busy schedule. This chapter is a request from the lovely [LadyLaran](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLaran/pseuds/LadyLaran) who requested a chapter on how Sherlock would react to Jane's 'time of the month.' Haha this was fun, and a bit of a challenge for me, but it makes me laugh, and I hope it brings a smile to your face.
> 
> xxHoney

Sherlock currently finds himself in a very strange predicament. Not once in his life can he ever remember being _kicked out_ of his _own_ flat. By anyone. Not even some of his more rapacious landlords over the years.

Yet here he is, poleaxed, and staring at the black door of 221B, the brass knocker still tapping lightly from having just been slammed forcefully in his face.

True, the experiment he was working on didn’t quite go to plan, inadvertently ruining all of their good silverware, and in the end he did take out his frustrated musings on his violin rather harshly. Add to the fact that it is, in fact, nearly (not even) one in the morning.

All things considered, this is hardly the worst he’s ever behaved, and Sherlock feels Jane overacted just the tiniest bit by confiscating all of his (secret) cigarettes, followed by ordering him to leave the apartment at the threat of gunpoint. (Practically.)

He sniffs, still staring at the door. It’s not like he couldn’t just pick the lock. But he won’t. Partly for Mrs. Hudson’s sake, but mostly because he is rather bewildered by his usually temperate flatmate, and could do with the walk to think things through. 

It only takes him about fifteen minutes of ambling around in the cold and getting absolutely nowhere when, fed up, he dials Lestrade.

 _“Inspector Lestrade.”_ Lestrade’s weary response filters through Sherlock’s mobile, and he smirks rather cruelly at the fact he deduced correctly that the long-suffering DI is still hung up at the Yard working on that smuggling case. (Dull.)

“Lestrade. I need your illuminating insight into the mind of the typical female. Anything you can give me, no holds barred.” 

_“The hell are you on about, Sherlock? It’s bloody late. Don’t you have…stuff to do besides bother me?”_

“I’m not bothering you. You’re at an impasse with your current case.”

 _“No thanks to you,”_ he grumbles.

“This case isn’t even a four. Now, come on. This is a rare chance for you to one-up me on knowledge I happen to be lacking.”

_“And what would that be?”_

“Weren’t you listening? Women.”

There is a gravid silence on the other end followed by an undignified snort.

_“You’re taking the piss.”_

“No,” Sherlock says. Then rolls his eyes when he begins howling with laughter. “Oh shut up.”

_“Did she kick you out?”_

Silence.

_“Oh, good god she did!”_

“Shut up!”

 _“Just as well,”_ Lestrade says, sobering. _“After all it is the fifteenth.”_

“What are you on about?” Sherlock says, alert.

_“Haven’t you ever heard of the saying ‘beware the ides of March?’”_

“Lestrade. It’s not even close to being March yet.”

 _“It’s the point of the saying, yeah? It’s about women.”_

More silence. 

_“You know…that ‘time of the month?’ Well there you have it.”_

Sherlock processes this, trying to dredge up long deleted info on popular sayings and female reproduction simultaneously. He’s drawing an absolute blank. Even with cross indexing.

“So…what do I do?” he finally concedes. He doesn’t want to be out here all night. It’s cold, besides.

 _“You might be on your own for this one, mate. I’ve got a lot of work to do here, and with nothing to go on…”_ Lestrade says trailing off pointedly.

“Oh for god’s sake. Antifreeze. It’s the street name for this particular brand of black tar heroin. Follow the leads and you will find that the smugglers are most likely using hollow porcelain ponies — or something equally kitschy — to transport their product,” Sherlock fires.

 _“Antifreeze? How do you know this?”_ Lestrade says suspiciously.

“It pays to keep an eye out. I have a network of people who keep me informed,” he replies haughtily. “There. That will at least cut your investigation in half. You could even pass it off to Hopkins at this point. Now, tell me: what do I do?”

There is a momentary silence on the other end while Lestrade makes notes and cross checks his information. Sherlock’s patience is waning, and he’s about ready to growl into the phone, when he hears the tell tales rattle of Lestrade’s pencil jar as he shoves home his biro for the night.

_“Okay. First step: find a twenty-four hour Tesco.”_

“Yes.” Sherlock knows just the one and adjusts his route accordingly.

_“Step two: get everything I tell you to. You might want to write this down…”_

*

Jane has finally managed to doze off on the sofa after a fitful night of insomnia and stomach pain, when the street door to the flat slams open.

She jerks awake groaning when she hears her insanity of a flatmate bounding up the stairs, only just remembering to be quiet when he swings open the door to the sitting room. His previously triumphant expression fades into one of contrition under Jane’s thunderous glare.

“Jane,” he says, shifting anxiously from foot to foot. “Did I wake you? Of course I did. It’s almost three in the morning.”

 _Three in the morning! Of-bloody-course!_ She’s about to ream his arse again for being so bloody impossible, when she finally notices the plastic carrier bags clutched in his hands. The only thing that comes out of her mouth is,

“You went shopping?”

“Um…yes,” he says cautiously.

“At three in the morning?”

“…Yes?”

Jane…has absolutely nothing to say to that, and so she just stares at him, jaw going a little slack like some sort of confused guppy. Before either of them can break the uncomfortable silence, Jane’s stomach cramps in protest again, and she subtly grits her teeth.

Of course for the world’s only Consulting Detective, it does not go amiss.

“Oh! You’re in pain!” he says with an uncouth glee that is completely opposite to anything remotely sympathetic. “That’ll be the prostaglandins; compounds in your system sending signals to your uterus to contract thereby constricting blood supply to the endometrium. What you are feeling is a combination of spasms and chemicals called leukotrienes that are responsible for the inflammation and pain you are experiencing.”

“Why…are we talking about my uterus? At three in the morning?” Jane feels like she needs to repeat this because, honestly, it’s important for her sanity at this point. If she doesn’t try to establish some sort of baseline for reality she might actually go mad.

Sherlock whirls into the kitchen keeping up his ongoing commentary as if she hadn’t spoken while he begins unloading the bags. “It’s really quite fascinating, and I must admit I was perhaps a bit hasty in deleting information on female reproduction from my archives. It’s actually incredible, the types of chemical reactions taking place inside you at the very moment, Jane, the hormones and molecular compounds being pumped into your blood by your endocrine system. You’re like a tiny warehouse. No! A factory is a more apt description —”

“Sherlock!” Jane shouts, having had to say his name three times now. She finally manages to get through, shuffling the rest of the way into the kitchen. He turns around, startled, and Jane is finally able to see what Sherlock bought and is setting out meticulously on the work top.

At first the objects have no rhyme or reason to them — milk, a lavender scented candle, two bars of expensive looking dark chocolate, a pair of fluffy slippers, a heating pad, three cartons of spumoni ice cream, a takeaway bag of what appears to be those pub chips she likes, and oddly enough a small potted cactus. One by one, the items line the work top, and Jane is growing more perplexed by the second until she spots the last incriminating item on the counter.

There, sitting in a frilly pink box, is a value pack of tampons.

Suddenly, everything makes a bizarre, horrifying sort of sense, and she doesn’t know whether to laugh or scream. She settles for sinking down into one of the kitchen chairs, benignly accepting her descent into apparent insanity.

“ _What_ are you doing?” she says. 

“I…thought it was obvious. I am attempting to ease your menstrual discomfort,” he says. Her eyes land on easily the most alarming of the lot.

“With a cactus?”

“No! Not with — did you not see all the —?” Sherlock says flustered, and Jane’s previous ire is rapidly turning into amusement. “The cactus is an apology, to go along with all of the other symptom-easing accoutrements. A lot less boring than flowers.”

“An apology cactus.”

“I have it on good authority that I am intractable even at the best of times, and given your fluctuating hormones —”

“Oh god, shut up. Who?”

“Pardon?”

“ _Who’s_ authority?” Jane says, a headache brewing between her eyes.

“Lestrade’s,” Sherlock says, and the image of him actually calling her uncle causes a hysterical giggle to bubble up. She tamps it down before it can escape, however. She’s enjoying Sherlock’s increasing unease. “He informed me about…well. You know.” Jane raises her eyebrows imploring him to continue. “The ‘Ides of March,’ so to speak.”

“It’s not even March,” she says, confused.

“That’s what I said!” Sherlock grumbles, ruffling his wild curls. He collapses back against the counter, arms falling to his sides in resignation. “I got it wrong didn’t I?”

The way he says it is so pathetic, Jane can’t keep back the grin any longer. She huffs a laugh shaking her head, and the laugh quickly escalates to a rather manic giggle. “Oh yeah.”

“And —?”

“Greg just took the ever-loving mickey out of you!” Jane says between chuckles. “The Ides of March? Where the hell did he even come up with that?”

“It’s Shakespeare, apparently,” he says with a morose twist to his lips.

“You looked it up?” Jane says, laughing even harder.

“I thought there was some cultural significance that I wasn’t understanding. I didn’t have a chance to cross reference Shakespeare’s other works with _Julius Caesar_ in the process of getting all of…this.”

She hums a laugh, the sounds drooping a little at the end in sadness. She smiles up at him ruefully. “I appreciate it, but…” She bites her lip.

“But what? What else have I missed?” Sherlock says coming over to stand in front of her.

“I don’t — I’m not —” She huffs out a breath, frustrated. Tries again. “I can’t…anymore. You know. All that,” she gestures to the pink box, her cheeks heating. Sherlock frowns down at her, and she looks away.

“Afghanistan?” he asks softly. She nods.

“They performed a D&C. It left residual scarring, so,” she says, attempting to remain clinical. To her horror however, her eyes begin to prickle and she launches to her feet, feeling supremely exposed and vulnerable.

“Jane?”

“Well! I think that’s enough for the night, yeah?” she says, attempting to move around him so she can flee back to her room. He stills her, hands on her shoulders, ducking his head so he can look at her.

“I’ve royally cocked this up, haven’t I?”

“You didn’t know.”

“I assumed. Didn’t have all the facts. And what did I do? I phoned an armature, and an utter — what’s the word you seem to be so fond of? ah — first rate _dick_ for advice.” This garners a snort out of her.

“He will never let you live it down.”

“I even solved a bloody case for him in return, the bastard,” Sherlock grumbles, a scowl darkening his features.

“It’s what you deserve,” Jane smirks. “And for the record, I kicked you out because I ate some fish contaminated by one of your experiments, and then proceeded to vomit for three hours while you tortured your bloody violin to earsplitting levels. I get to do that if you are being insufferable, you know, regardless of the state of my ‘hormones’.” She slips her arms around his waist, and he tugs her closer almost absently. “Although what you did was very sweet, and much like a proper boyfriend.”

“Oh _god,”_ Sherlock groans, scowling even harder. She pecks him on the tip of his nose, and his expression lightens up somewhat.

“That should be your punishment, I think. _Sentiment,”_ Jane says, amused at his disgusted face. She pulls away, and starts tidying up said ‘symptom-easing accoutrements,’ when Sherlock says,

“Jane, can I ask…what exactly is the relevance of Shakespeare in this instance? It’s driving me mad.”

“Haven’t the foggiest,” she replies, setting the apology cactus in the windowsill above the sink. “I’m pretty sure Greg’s taking the piss again with that one.”

 _“Bastard,”_ he mutters, composing what is no doubt a furious text to the wily DI, and Jane shakes her head with a grin that won’t abate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And congrats to LadyLaran on finishing her genderbent Watson story, [A Study in Partnership!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1148620/chapters/2327390)
> 
> *By the way, the condition Jane's referring to is a real thing. It's called Asherman's Syndrome, and in rare cases can result from a D&C after an incomplete miscarriage. More info on Asherman's can be found [here](http://www.ashermans.org/home/).


	45. Battle of Wit and Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft muses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow guys. It's been way too long since I've updated this, and I apologise. Life has definitely got in the way of my writing, but I am trying to get back on the saddle with this. (Apologies especially to [Anaamikaa,](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Anaamikaa/pseuds/Anaamikaa) my podfic buddy in crime that I've totally dropped off the face of the earth with. I still <3 you and I am so sorry for getting so busy.) This one is short, but there is a longer one after this that will be up soon.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Doppleganger'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1674830/chapters/5534300) in part seven of the series.

Mycroft twists the knife just like he always does. 

_Sex doesn’t alarm me._

_How would you know?_

And then, his brother’s expression shatters just a little — microcosms of shock, anger, panic, and finally hurt all disbursing and coming to rest on an expertly blank mask, eyes averted. Proving, once again, Mycroft has forced his brother to submit to his superiority.

Mycroft’s grin is more of a grimace, however, and he can’t help the faint bitterness that curdles at the back of his throat. The victory is hollow, like always, and regret knots his stomach for a second.

Only a second, however. 

He can’t let what he feels for his brother interfere with the necessary agendas held in place. This ludicrous scandal needs to be stopped immediately, and if Sherlock insists on being intransigent, then all bets are off.

Maybe, if Mycroft weren’t surrounded by politics, and the virtue of honesty actually mattered, he would admit to being bothered at how easily it is to wound possibly the only person close to him.

But, caring. is not. an advantage.

He narrows his gaze over the top of his teacup, catching Jane Watson’s eye. She regards him shrewdly, her expression dark and knowing. 

God, wasn’t she just the thorn in his side as of late? There is just something about her that grinds against the grain of his typical veneered surface. Only Sherlock has ever been able to get to him like that, and now apparently this unremarkable army doctor as well. It is worth examining at another time, perhaps. Perhaps when she is out of the picture. 

Because, really, she surely can’t stay forever.

Can she?


	46. Photographs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock finds a photograph of Jane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray another Afters! I am trying to get my groove back you guys. This one has been percolating for a bit ever since I saw this gorgeous [photo](http://pawspaintsnthings.tumblr.com/post/90227265081/quickie-of-femjohn-in-the-army) on tumblr by PawsPaintsnThings. Drop by their post and laud their praises for me. It's so beautiful.
> 
> In conjunction with the chapter ['Du Bon Vieux Temps'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1674830/chapters/6282503) in part seven of the series.

Sherlock is rummaging through Jane’s wardrobe, attempting to find the right type of wool for an experiment, hoping her hideous jumper collection will yield something workable, when he stumbles across it.

Well, first he stumbles across the conspicuous safe sitting on the floor which, naturally, is something he immediately wants to get his hands on (especially seeing as how it'll probably only take him less than a second to figure out the code, he's sure) however, he pauses, a small smirk curving his mouth. He recoginses the safe for what it is, a herring, distracting him from the real 'safe' – a battered Addias shoe box sitting innocently on top. (Absurd, Jane has never owned a pair of trainers, preferring her dependable hiking boots over more trendy women's footwear.)

Part of him is proud at how crafty Jane's become, attempting the whole 'hide in plain sight thing' and he hesitates a second before opening the box. But only a second, because...well. He's Sherlock.

Of course it's all sentimental things. A colourful hair tie stretched beyond all function; a scrap of what looks like a pillowcase, worn and soft and smelling of lavender; dozens of postcards; et cetera, and sundry, mementos and forget-me-nots. If it were anyone else's personal effects, he would have deemed it all boring and turned his attention once more to the safe just to prove he could crack it. But it isn't just anyone's life in a box, it's Jane.

Under the post cards, odd magazine articles, and amusingly, a tie-dyed Beenie Baby, Sherlock unearths the real prize: Jane's dog tags.

He lifts them almost reverently, holding them up at eye-level so they twist and turn, glinting in the lamp-light. His breath catches when he notices a stubborn bit of dried blood in the chain. She was wearing these when she was shot.

They suddenly seem to take on weight, and he lowers them carefully into his hand, letting the chain coil and pool in the lines and ridges of his palm. He fights the irrational urge to pocket them, but he knows, eventually, she will notice this particular totem missing. It's too significant, and Sherlock wants something that she can never request he give back. Besides, there's a certain unworthiness he feels about even the idea of taking them, and even with his stunted social barometer, he knows nicking the dog tags would be a bit 'not on.'

With a sigh, he goes to return them when something else catches his eye.

There, flush and forgotten with the side of the box, is what is clearly the back side of a photograph. He would have missed it were it not for the hastily penned name in a hand he doesn't recognise:

_Janette H. Watson – Kandehar – '07_

With a little thrill, he manages to get the edge of his thumbnail under the corner of the photo, and peels it away from the box. When he turns it over, he can't help the soft smile or the warm tingle in his chest as his eyes rove over the image. A younger Jane smiles back at him from her place sitting atop her army helmet, the golden Afghan desert in shimmering backdrop. Her hair is loosely braided in a style that is carefree-yet-comely, spilling down over her shoulder, with a few silvery strands escaping here and there. Her skin is rosy and vibrant, and the ease at which she holds herself lets him know that there is nowhere this Jane would rather be than right where she is. It really is quite striking.

Sherlock is about to fold up the photo – deciding this will be his trophy, given due to its neglected state, its absence surely won't arouse suspicion – when he stills. He brings it up closer to his face to get a better look, just to be sure his eyes aren't playing tricks on him. He squints in the dim light, turning the photo back and forth.

Sherlock Holmes prides himself on knowing every nuance of his blogger down to the last freckle, and therefore he knows without a doubt that Jane's eyes are indeed hazel. (Well, hazel is just a catch-all name for the variety of gold and green and brown that actually make up her irises.) In fact, he could possibly write a monograph on the subject, but that would require a lot of intense staring, and Jane has told him on occasion that it's more than a little invasive. ('Creepy'. Her word not his.)

So, there is no way the Jane peering out at him has _blue_ eyes.

And not just any blue. They are deep, and arresting like the sea.

He stares at the portrait attempting to come up with an explanation. So far the list is quite short. To his knowledge, there is nothing in the surrounding area that would cause a reflection of blues and greens to this degree. It's preposterous, people's eyes _don't_ change colour, and yet…

It's possible – quite possible – that Jane is the exception to this rule. 

And that she somehow managed to bring the desert back with her. Incandescent doesn't do it justice any more. No, Jane is something else altogether. 

She is _utterly transcendent._

[](http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/oleanderhoney/media/darling%20Jane_zpsnboch4jc.jpg.html)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To any of you who have ever asked me what I pictured Jane looked like. It's this. This is her in my head.  
> [Image source](http://pawspaintsnthings.tumblr.com/post/90227265081/quickie-of-femjohn-in-the-army)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [An Attempt at an Olive Branch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3447809) by [LadyLaran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLaran/pseuds/LadyLaran)
  * [A Study in Duets](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3456938) by [LadyLaran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLaran/pseuds/LadyLaran)




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